48 
THE YOtiNG SCIENTIST. 
to their natural positions. There will be 
no difficulty in the pose of the wings, 
which, unless stretched, will fall perfectly 
naturally into their places. The skin 
should be laid carefully on its back on a 
flat surface, in the same position as when 
held by the beak, securing the wings, if 
necessary, by a thread passing round the 
body, and left untouched till dry, which 
will take a longer or shorter period, ac- 
cording to the size of the specimen, and 
the state of the weather. Occasionally 
during drying there will be a tendency of 
some few feathers to become prominent, 
owing to contracticn ; if they are few, they 
may be removed when the skin is dry ; but 
in the case of a tuft of plumage, they must 
be kept down, either by a weight or by a 
strip of paper crossing them and pinned 
through the skin to the tow body; but, 
unless the body is overstuiTed, there 
should be no difficulty as to smoothness 
of feathers. Perhaps the thick tuft cover- 
ing the shoulders is most prone to rebel, 
and I have often found it useful to sur- 
round the wings with a broad strip of 
paper, secured by one pin through the 
breast, instead of the thiead^— Science 
Gossip. 
To he Continued. 
How Plants Breathe. 
IN a former article we described the 
manner in which insects breathe, and 
gave a cut of the spiracles or openings 
through which the circulating system of 
the insect communicates with the air. We 
now give a description of the way in which 
plants breathe. 
The breathing of. plants, if it may be so 
called, is, however, just the opposite of 
the breathing of animals. . The animal 
requires oxygen, which burns up the 
used-up tissues of the body and makes 
heat to keep that body warm. The pro- 
duct of this combustion, carbonic acid, is 
then thrown off, and this carbonic acid, 
which would be poison to animals if again 
breathed, is the breath of life to plants, 
for they decompose it, use the carbon for 
the purpose of building up their tissues, 
and give off the oxygen, which again be- 
comes the breath of animals. In this way 
plants and animals form a mutual balance, 
each supplying what the other needs, and 
consuming that which the other throws 
off. 
If we take the fruit leaves of almost any 
plant, and strip off a little of the cuticle 
or thin outer skin, we will find that under 
the microscope it presents an appearance 
somewhat like Fig. 1. All over the sur- 
face will be seen the stomata or openings, 
five of which are shown in the engraving. 
W.e.S .AD MAT 
In some plants, such as the Hydrangea, 
there are 160,000 of these openings to every 
square inch. In other i)lants there are 
fewer ; thus the Yucca has 40,000, and the 
Jri.s Germanica 12,000. The best way to 
procure the cuticle for examination is to 
take a very sharp knife, cut the cuticle 
across, raising it a little at the same time, 
and then, grasping it between the thumb 
and the edge of the knife, strip it off by 
gently pulling it. There is a knack about 
this which is more easily shown than de- 
scribed, but a very few trials will enable 
the young microscopist to succeed, and 
then he will have a wide range of subjects 
from which he may select beautiful ob- 
jects for his cabinet. In a future article 
we will explain the best methods of 
mounting them. 
In Figure 1 the stomata are shown as 
they appear when seen from above. The 
way in which they open into the interior 
of the leaf can only be shown by a cross- 
section of the leaf, such as is shown in 
Fig. 2. Such a section is easily obtained 
by fagtenijig a leaf between two pieces of 
