February 12, 1892,] 



SCIENCE. 



95 



Nature had these little leaflets in mind long before she 

 brought them forth, as shown by the veins on the first leaf 

 of our little seedling. 



But let us return to the perfect leaflet, which has been 

 given oflf and now enjoys the responsibility of individuality. 

 Observing it carefully, we discover that nature has planned 

 a repetition of the process of division. Leaf No. 4 demon- 

 strates the progress of this conception. The new leaflets can 

 be readily perceived, though they yet live with the mother 

 leaflets, if we may so designate the latter, which continue to 

 elaborate nourishment for their offspring until they no longer 

 need direct parental care. 



In leaf No. 5, nature has almost reached the highest type 

 of blackberry leaf of the present. In it, the fifth leaflet is 

 about to bid adieu to its mother-leaflet; it stands on the 

 threshold of individual existence; soon it will reach maturity 

 and have a petiole all its own. The truth of this assertion 

 is demonstrated by leaf No. 6, which represents a normal 

 .blackberry leaf, with five fully developed leaflets. 



Nature never does anything in a hurry. Whether it took 

 ages or aeons to evolve the five leaflets from the single leaf 

 we do not know, but he who runs — through a blackberry 

 patch — may read on every plant or bush some chapter of 

 the story of evolution she has written on the leaves. The 

 single leaflet will not be met with so commonly, but various 

 stages of transition, from three to five leaflets may be found 

 on any blackberry plant. 



Agassiz insisted that the laws of geological succession and 

 embryonic development are the same, that embryology, or 

 the development of the individual, is an epitome of the de- 

 velopment of the entire series. In the leaves of the seedling 

 blackberry we have, as it were, an epitome of the evolution 

 of the blackberry leaf from the ancestral form to the present 

 type. 



The social world is sometimes disturbed and startled by 

 the appearance of a reformer, who casts from him supersti- 

 tions, dogmas, old beliefs, and mounts to a higher mental 

 plane. So, too, there are reformers among plants ; for instance, 

 a blackberry leaf of six or seven leaflets is sometimes found ; 

 it is true such leaves are considered monstrosities, or abnor- 

 qaal specimens. 



If we again permit ourselves to read between the lines, 

 will we not be able to see in these abnormal leaves that na- 

 ture is at work now as in the past ? Favorable conditions 

 and hereditary influence are now, as formerly, the tools she 

 furnishes her favorites for working out their evolution. 



The trifoliate leaf existed in embryo, as it were, in our 

 ancestral seedling leaf. Nature said, "Move on!" When 

 the whole brotherhood had reached the dignity of the perfect 

 trifoliate leaf, she bade them still "move on!" All have 

 not yet attained to the degree of progress represented by the 

 five leaflets. But nature will continue to "move on," and 

 the occasional reversions and reformers are the sign-boards 

 which indicate to us the road she has taken. 



Mrs. W. a. Kellerman. 



Columbus, Ohio. 



NOTES ON THE FOOD OF THE BOX TOETOISE. 



Several years ago, walking one morning in a wood in 

 Pennsylvania, I surprised a wood turtle or box tortoise eat- 

 ing his breakfast. The season had been rainy, and many 

 varieties of large fungus had attained a prodigal growth. 

 The woods were full of what are popularly called toadstools; 

 many of them were of the diameter of a tea plate, and stood 

 five or six inches high. As I walked through the wood I 



observed that many of these fungi had been gnawed oflf 

 evenly, as if cut by a knife, leaving only the central pillar 

 intact. What had done this? I soon discovered, for moving 

 noiselessly over the mossy earth, I came to a little opening, 

 where grew one of the finest of these toadstools, and there 

 was a wood turtle taking his breakfast. 



The animal had already made one or two rounds of his 

 plate, and was eating with praiseworthy deliberation. He 

 would bite off a mouthful of toadstool, chew it carefully 

 until he had extracted all the juice, then open his mouth and 

 drop out the chewed fibre, and take a fresh mouthful, biting 

 not inward toward the stem, but breaking ofi' the morsel 

 next beside that which he had just eaten. He paced round 

 and round the fungus as he took his bites, eating his plate like 

 ^neas and the other Trojans, and as the fungus decreased in 

 regular circles the circle of chewed fragments increased. In 

 three quarters of an hour he had eaten all the disk of the 

 fungus to the stem part, and then he walked slowly off to 

 look for another. 



I found the crumbs that had fallen from his vanished 

 table quite dry, nothing nutritious being left in them. Why 

 he rejected the central part of the fungus and the stem I 

 could not imagine, but he left it in every instance. If he 

 came upon a decayed or wormy portion of the toadstool he 

 did not "bite round it," but abandoned it altogether and 

 went for a fresh one. 



Last summer I took home with me a box tortoise to ex- 

 periment on feeding it. He ate flies and other insects from 

 my fingers at once, showing no signs of fear; he ate bread 

 and milk with evident relish. I put a blackberry in his 

 open mouth and he closed upon it, but at once, with every 

 appearance of deep disgust, stretched his mouth wide open, 

 and, taking his right front paw hand-wise, wiped all the 

 berry from his mouth. He repealed this performance many 

 times, both with blackberries and blueberries, always using 

 his right paw to cleanse his mouth. 



J. McNair Wright. 



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 of the journal. 



Hypnotism among the Lower Animals. 



The power attributed to the snake and feline families, of 

 ' ' charming " their victims, seems to me past dispute. Is it not 

 merely a form of bypnolism? Livingston tells us that when at 

 one time seized by a tiger, he felt neither terror nor pain, all his 

 senses seemed to be benumbed. Bates, in his " Naturalist on the 

 Amazons," states that one day in the woods a small pet dog flew 

 at a large rattlesnake. The snake fixed its eyes on the dog, erected 

 its tail, and shook its rattle; it seemed in no haste to seize the 

 dog, but as if waiting to put the dog into a mote suitable condi- 

 tion for being seized. As to the dog, it neither continued the at- 

 tack nor retreated, could not or would not move when called, and 

 was with difficulty dragged away by its master. 



I have seen one case of a snake charming a bird, but I had a 

 better opportunity to study a cat charming a bird, and probably 

 the process is mucli alike in both. 



The eat placed itself on the outside sill of my window, near to 

 a pine tree. A bird presently lit on the pine tree, no doubt not 

 observing the cat. The cat fixed its attention on the bird. The 

 cafs eyes were widely opened, and shone with a peculiar bright- 

 ness; its head was raised and intent, the fur on its neck and about 

 its face slowly stood up, as if electrified. Except for this rising 

 of the fur, and a certain intensity of life in the whole attitude of 



