EDITORIAL 
1 1 1 
the country where they would have 
more room in which to run and the 
neighbors and ourselves lived happily 
ever after. 
That experience has given us a warm 
spot in our hearts for neighbors who 
persist in keeping perpetual barking- 
machines. We know how it was our- 
selves and perhaps it will dawn on 
others as it did on us that barking dogs 
are an infernal nuisance, especially in 
the central part of a town. 
We have had similar experience with 
cats and have wished at times when we 
were especially exasperated that there 
was not a cat in Sound Beach. In that 
extreme generality we are sure there 
are many specific instances of birds in 
ArcAdiA that must have thought, if 
they thought at all, in perfect agree- 
ment with us. But the cat nuisance is 
best solved by specific application. Get 
a harmless trap and put the cat under- 
ground after it has been disposed of 
by chloroform. It is astonishing how 
the general nuisance of cats, especially 
in bird nesting time, could be greatly 
lessened by the application of the 
specific slogan, “A cat a day will keep 
other cats away,” or at any rate lower 
the onrushing, devastating tide of cats. 
The silliest thing of which we have 
heard about smashing generalities due 
to specific cases occurred in the city of 
Rochester. An alderman was stung by 
a honeybee and immediately introduced 
a resolution that no one should be 
permitted to keep bees within the city 
limits. Isn’t that the limit of a smash- 
ing generality due to a specific case? 
Suppose, for example, he were able to 
get such a fool ordinance passed, look 
at all the injury to fruits and flowers 
that must be fertilized by bees. Look 
at all the loss of eliminating a food 
product. It is claimed that in one city 
alone there has been produced a hun- 
dred thousand pounds of honey. What 
would that alderman do with the wild 
bees, yellow jackets, hornets, mosqui- 
toes and horseflies? It is evident that 
in the city of Rochester there is a great 
source of nectar, otherwise the pro- 
fessional and amateur beekeepers could 
never obtain so much honey. Does any 
one suppose that the wild bees and 
bees escaping from neighboring 
apiaries will let all that go to waste? 
No, sir, no number of ordinances will 
keep the bees out of that city. As well 
might one attempt to wring out the 
ocean with a mop. The bees would 
occupy Rochester even if they had to 
do it in the tree tops, as they have 
done here in ArcAdiA. All summer 
there has been a prosperous swarm 
making comb honey and apparently 
living happily on a limb in a totally in- 
accessible top of an oak tree. Honey- 
bees could not be kept out of Roches- 
ter. The stings of insects as well as 
other kinds of annoyances to which hu- 
manity is subject cannot be eliminated 
by legal enactment. 
The fact is that every human being 
must put up with a good many nui- 
sances that would be perfectly legiti- 
mate if they could be confined within 
the limits belonging to other human 
beings along other lines. If you get 
stung by a bee, tame or wild, laugh at 
it and go on with your work. If you 
are kept awake at night by barking 
dogs, or if run over by an automobile, 
think that honeybees and dogs and au- 
tomobiles have settled down in this 
world to stay awhile and so have the 
peculiarities and differences of opinion 
of other people. 
Cheer up ; this is a pretty good sort 
of a world and the other fellow is al- 
ways right from his own point of view. 
Try to get into that spirit as much as 
possible. 
The ancient mystery of the firefly’s 
light seems at last to have been solved 
by a physiologist at Princeton. The 
chemistry of the process is difficult 
enough. In effect, the luminous sub- 
stance burns in oxygen like any fuel, 
only instead of forming carbon dioxide 
and water, as other luminants do, the 
products of the combustion are of such 
a nature that when allowed to stand 
away from air, they change back into 
the original substance, and) are ready 
to be burned again. The experimenter 
obtained the “light without heat” in 
a test tube, which glowed when 
shaken. 
The common ostrich has only two 
toes, but certain individuals, it appears, 
are tending to lose one of these. Pos- 
sibly, in time, if the mutation con- 
tinues, there will arise a one-toed form, 
analogous to the present day one-toed 
horses, whose ancestors had as many 
toes as the ancestors of the ostrich. 
