I IO 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
ingly interesting to watch future ex- 
periments with sky projectiles or 
“rockets.” Such sky projectiles will 
be propelled by an initial explosion, and 
their initial velocity will then be in- 
creased or sustained by a succession of 
explosions from the projectiles them- 
selves. Although these powerful sky- 
rockets may not reach our moon, at 
their first trial, they may ascend much 
higher than the “sounding balloons,” 
and perhaps some of them may pene- 
trate as high as the “Hydrogen- 
sphere.” Some idea of the difficulty 
in escaping from our earth’s surface is 
given us when we are told that a sky 
projectile must have an initial velocity 
of about seven miles per second to en- 
able it to leave our world never to 
return. 
The Turtle Again Came Home. 
On page 22 of The Guide to Nature 
for July, 1920, we published a remark- 
able story of a turtle. Our readers will 
recall that to save his tomatoes Mr. 
Rittenhouse four times carried the 
turtle varying distances from his home 
and left it there only to have it eventu- 
ally return. Distance and time seem 
to be no obstacle to this persistent 
turtle, for one home-coming was after 
an absence of four years and the jour- 
ney of five miles included crossing a 
river. 
This year on August 20 the turtle 
again appeared among the tomatoes, 
just two years and seventeen days after 
it had been left six miles or more away 
in most promising quarters. The turtle 
is readily identified by marks cut into 
the bottom shell, and this year has the 
added markings of the initials D. A. D. 
Air. Rittenhouse is desirous of hearing 
from the owner of these initials. There 
is not much change in the size of the 
turtle, the greatest increase having 
been made in the four years’ absence. 
We quite agree with the editor of the 
local paper of Milford, New Jersey, 
when he states as follows : 
“Mr. Rittenhouse has not decided 
what to do with him this time, but we 
for one think Mr. Turtle is deserving 
of considerable consideration, judging 
from his past record. We would feel 
inclined to grow him a patch of to- 
matoes every year and let him have his 
own good time with them.” 
EDITORIAL. 
The General Versus the Specific. 
Can anything be more foolish than 
the attempt to make a general rule to 
cover special cases or to cure a particu- 
lar ill by sweeping general acts of 
devastation? A house may be freed 
from bedbugs by burning it down. That 
is a simple matter, but looking only at 
the bedbug side of things, what a fool- 
ish thing to do. 
I once knew a boarding school for 
girls that was accustomed for more 
than a decade to occasionally invite 
boys’ schools and other young men to 
an evening social time, but one even- 
ing came that little specific. One fel- 
low with a bottle of beer in his pocket 
invited one of his lady dancers from the 
school hall out to the veranda and there 
shared with her the bottle of beer. 
Bottles of beer at a boarding school are 
not just the thing, but note the remedy. 
Forthwith the edict was proclaimed,. 
“AM more boys at dances or social 
times at this school,” and for nearly 
ten years that rule prevailed. In the- 
name of good pedagogy, good common 
sense and humanity, could anything 
have been sillier? Little faults or big 
faults should not result in too sweep- 
ing generalities. The little part should 
not control the whole. A fraternal and 
kindly spirit leads in most cases to 
overlook little shortcomings. We are 
glad it is so. If it were not so this, 
would be a difficult world to live in. 
Several years ago in our old ArcAdiA^ 
we thought it would be well to add 
two collie dogs to our list of pets. From 
our point of view our beloved pets 
could do no harm but we overlooked 
or rather tolerated their perpetual 
barking. When dogs are confined even 
to a house yard an unnatural canine 
nervous strain is the result that soon 
becomes an annoyance to the neigh- 
bors. Nobody objected verbally, no- 
body said that all dogs in Sound Beach 
should be killed, but somehow we in- 
stinctively felt that we were demand- 
ing more than we should of our neigh- 
bors and it was rather more than should 
be demanded of those dogs to expect 
them to be calm and serene when they 
were restricted to the yard. So we 
transferred the dogs to a place up in 
