THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
of spruce twigs covered with their greeii needles. Entire 
plants of violets are also used, and the latter have l^een 
found in the nest so recently gathered that the flowers had 
not begun to droop. 
Erroneous Botany. — In a recent address Dr. W. F. 
Ganong called attention to the fact that when once an error 
gets into the text-books it is copied and passed along by 
other w-riters without hesitation. So great is our respect 
for the ''authorities" that we seldom question a statement 
made with any show of erudition. If anyone doubts this 
he has but to get down his manual and see what the books 
say about the color of the ripe berries of the false Solomon's 
seal (Smilaciua raccmosai) and then compare this statement 
with the berries as they are. A few instances of this kind — 
and the botanical works contain many— ought to make all 
students a bit more hesitant in accepting facts encountered 
in botanical writings. 
The Pleasures of an Investigator. — Dr. E. E. 
Nichols, speaking before the Eastern Association of Physics 
Teachers at Boston recently, told of the pleasures of original 
investigation that may come to the student of physics. The 
physicists, however, have no monopoly of the pleasures of 
investigation. The botanical student has but to substitute 
botany for physics in the paragraph here quoted to make 
it applicable to his own line of work. "To be an investi- 
gator at all, one must have followed at least one line to the 
boundary which separates the known from the unknown 
and must interest himself not for a day. but daily year in 
and year out in finding trails leading outward into the wil- 
derness. To pick out such a trail and blaze it a little way 
for the benefit of those who shall come after is to my mind 
what makes physics a live subject and the most fascinating 
pursuit in which a man can engage." 
