262 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
complete life history of such a plant as the Indian corn after the 
separate consideration of structure and function of root, stem 
and leaf. 
Mabel L. Merriman. 
Catching Fish With Intoxicating Plants.— A novel 
method of catching fish, employed by the natives of Guam, is 
thus described by William E. Safford (Nat. Geog. Mag. 16: 
2 33 > 1905)- 
The fruit of a common tree (Barringtonia speciosa) “ is 
pounded into a paste, inclosed in a bag, and kept over night. 
The time of an especially low tide is selected, and bags of the 
pounded fruit are taken out on the reef next morning and sunk 
in certain deep holes in the reef. The fish soon appear on the 
surface, some of them lifeless, others attempting to swim, or 
faintly struggling with their ventral side uppermost. The na¬ 
tives scoop them in their hands, sometimes even diving for them. 
“ As many young fish unfit for food are destroyed by this 
process, the Spanish government forbade this method of fishing, 
but since the American occupation of the island the practice has 
been revived.” C. S. G. 
A Cheap and Simple Root Cage.— The usual form of root 
cage in use is usually a box with an oblique glass side through 
which the growth and movements of roots may be observed. A 
much simpler and less cumbersome piece of apparatus and one 
which has other advantages to boot may be constructed from a 
sheet of glass, some stiff paper, paraffin, string and sphagnum 
moss, chopped and well washed. The paper should be rendered 
waterproof by means of the paraffin, by applying it with a hot 
iron. The glass having been cleaned, the moss is laid upon it to 
the thickness of an inch and the paper is then wrapped about the 
whole so as to make a pocket, leaving the glass free except along 
a narrow strip about three edges. The hole is held together by 
the string. Seeds may then be planted upon the open edge of 
the moss and the subsequent behavior watched. The advantage 
which this arrangement has, beyond the simplicity of construc¬ 
tion and slight cost, lies in the ease with which it may be placed 
