NATURK STUDY. 
H 
with a force sufficient to throw the spore some distance. 
As usual, it is the kicker that is kicked. 
The proper time to collect a plant and see the fun is 
when the fruiting heads are beginning to ripen and a por¬ 
tion of the spores are falling out. It will then be all ready 
for inspection b}^ the time you get home. Focus your mi¬ 
croscope and, with your eye at the eye-piece, shake the 
spores upon the slide. Such a kicking and scrambling 
you have not seen since the last Rugby game in the fall. 
When the legs are all straight and everything is quiet, 
breathe gently upon the .spores. If the microscope be 
small, you can do this without taking the eye from the in¬ 
strument. As the mass is moistened the filaments bend 
and again are bound about the spores. In a few seconds 
they again become dry and another contest begins. 
Nothing in the plant world of New England is so pro¬ 
vocative of merriment as these little fairy kickers. Nature 
must have been in a merry mood as well as prudential 
when she invented them. For an evening at home they 
are a perfectly proper ballet. In the school room they are 
a fertile source of interest and pleasure. In connection 
with the observation read W. H. Gibson’s chapter on 
squirming spores in his “Sharp Byes.’’ 
