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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1929-02-14, Page 6Auntie Makes a Helpful Suggestion (Pauline Herr Thomas)i showered with beautiful toyer, every- one predlced eellishness ()swept .Auntie Auntie May'was spending the day May. For the xnoz�uent, however,at deatuna's house. The two had just Auntie May became a bit troubled: gtepred out for a; walls wl►en they met "It did appear sottish," she thought, ; Baby Lento and her mother. They "but then, Jeanne has always been 1 were about to start on after chatting painstaking, quite beyond her years, a moment when Jeanne asked Auntie to keep her toys in good condition. I u tea. She ran back i to watt a fed" mri u can't believe it Was pure selfishness:". e into the house to return presently with 'Men they were once more at home her brand new "bye -10" doll in her I and Jeanne was playing happily with equally new carriage. { her doll, Auntie May said, "You. ,love Shehad a moment of indecision your dolly, don't you, clear?" when she saw Louise, her face beam- i "Oh, yes! better than all my other ing, running joyfully to it, shouting, to3'Se is such a lovely dolly. Baby '"Lourie push, Louise push," but she .Louisa loved her, too, didn't shay>, came ea toward the group with b.er continued Auntie to prize possession, and though looking "But dAAuntntiel I was so afraid she ay. eonewhat rueful, allowed Louise to would let her fall!" Catch the handle of the carriage. In a moment Louise had abandoned the"Well, of course, Louise is too little idea of pushing and had taken the doll ttoot 1 hinly of being cared careful. She could in her arms, but as quickly Jeanne better with Raggedy Auld took it from. her, anxiously, and care- couldn't she?" suggested Auntie May. fully replaced it while she warned. "Mustn't touch the dolly, Louise, only . push." Louise's momentary joy of posses-; sion made her eager for more, so Arlene broke my big dolly and Jackie again she dragged the dolly from her smashed my washing set, and —" covers and again Jeanne recovered 1 "Of course, Arlene was too little to her, this dine to rush into the house ' play with your big dolly and Jackie with her treasure, leaving only the was'a boy and did not know just how carriage, which of course no longer to play with a little girl's washing ;satisfied Louise. There followed Bete shreiks of dismay while her mother, "Well, I just won't take nay dolly the unspoken words, "How selfish!" out when Louise is there, any more. plainly written on her face, tried to She can have my balls and blocks and comfort her. I such things, and I'll let Evelyn and Auntie May said nothing, as she felt Ruth play with my `bye lo' dolly,— that a discussion of the conduct and they're bigger, you know." traits of her niece was imminent, and "Hardly a selfish decision and surely she objected to discussing them with 1a justifiable oiie," thought Auntie May. a neighbor. "It's just as easy to be sympatetically Beca.tise Jeanne was an only child suggestive as to be hastily cordemna- and because she had always been tory, and very much more profitable." horse are distinct species, to be sure, but nearly related and belong to the same genus; whereas cabbages and other, are at best quite distant cousins radishes, though still related to each and belong to different genera. , According to the naturalists, a spe- cies is made up of individual plants "Oh, yes! she can have Raggedy Ann any time. I don't mind who plays with my toys if they will only careful as I am. You know A Queer One The Radish -Cabbage Wedding and Their Family of Cabbishes and Radages A round little radish lived with her or animals quite similar in heredtY cousin, husband, who wasualso her di ;anend cabbage,taro make -UP, andarusually also in appear- gardenrin, a Uig rouhi ante, unless breeding and selection Georgia lt ofa Russian scientist, Dr- have split it up into distinguishable D. �iarpenchenk0. He had of ficiated at their wedding, and now he varietes. Thus, all black oaks belong kept track of their progeny. Whether to one species ot oak, and all white to call the hybrid plants resulting from oaks to another; and in nature all this crossing of two cousins of the black oaks look more or less like each vegetable kingdom "raddages" or other, as do the white oaks. All dogs are of the same species, fro man ac is a problem,thwe learn but here artificial breeding has split Frank man account o4 the expaiment by j the species up into separate varieties SciencecThome in.NEA Magazine and or breeds, ranging all the way from Service. Reading on: Pomeranians and Mexican hairless to St. Bernards and Newfoundlands. Similarly artificial breeding has split up the original cabbage stock into Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, cauliflower and several distinct varieties of true cabbage; but these are all children of one species, all varieties of tho orig- inal stock, known to botanists as Brassica oleracea. You can pu your finger down on almost any part of one of these nee/ "raddages"—or "cabbishes," if you prefer to call 'em so—and pick out, hero a radish character, there some thing of unmistakable cabbage origin, Mr. Thone remarks as he proceeds: The leaves, for example, have more of the radish shape and arrangement. They never try to head up, but remain as a. loose rosette rising a little above the ground. Tlie nearest they come to being a cabbage is to look a little like their old wild ancestor. But though radially in. shape, they are a little cabbagy in texture, being less hairy than typical radish leaves. This habit of forming only a rosette of leaves near the ground persisted in- to the second generation or grand- children of the original cross,' even though these were again crossed with head -forming varieties ---cabbage and Brussels sprouts. The roots of the hybrids were plain- ly enough hybrid roots. They were on the cliffs along the North Sea not thickened up into the nice edible shores. That is the fate of many hy- globes or spindles that radishes make, brill creases; they produce what look but neither were they so strictly thin like "throwbacks." A queer posterity it was. In our neighbor world of plants and animals there seems to be a prejudice against marrying, too far out of the family. I%Iate a donkey and a horse, and you get nothing but mules. Mate a carrot and a beet, and you get—nothing at all. The relationship is too remote. For the breeder the rule is, always, make your matings relatively close; the more distant the cousinship the less chance you have of obtaining off- spring, and the less chance the off- spring you do get have of amounting to anything. There are a few good hybrids that have become standardized—the mule, tor example—but for every success re - Suiting from these out -of -the -family matings there are thousands of - failures. The great majority of hybrids are worthless. It was so with the radish -cabbage wedding that took place under Dr. Karpechenko's hand in the garden of the Institute of Applied Botany of Detskoe Selo, near Leningrad. The 'offspring were neither cabbages nor radishes, but merely queer rosettes of leaves. They did not make cabbage heads above the ground nor radish roots be- neath. In. fact, they resembled, out- wardly at east, the tufty little ances- tral cabbage plants that still grow wild Is It a Laugh or aGrowl? GENIAL SEA LION WAS TOLD TO LOOK PLEASANT A pet in the London Zoo was in an accoinmoclating mood when the pho grapher asked him to POSE and he -exhibited the wide smile for which has become famous. Laws of Electricity Linked ith G ravityp Laws by Einstein Theory New Work of Great Physicist Extends Relativity Theory to • Electrodynamics,.According to Summary Given by Berlin Mathematician 'Berlin: —Dr. Bruno Borchardt has their movements from pecul1aritiee of given the Associated Press a summary their gravity areas rather than from in popular terries of the new discovery a general Inter-eect of gravity of all of Prof. Albert Einstein, whose matte !miles upon each other. SimilarlY matical formulae have been prepared each body that finds itself in an elect - for presentation to the Prussian Acad- rio condition it represented as sur' only of Sciences. These findings ita've rounded by an electric field or area not been published, but friends of the from whose peculiarities and permit. discoverer of relativity see In this ex- tations the laws of electric nianifes• Position of the relation between grav- tations, or electric movements—ce ity and electrodynamics a further otherwise, electrias dynamies-- must great advance in the field of physics. be derived. Dr. Gorchardt is the author of num- "Even only a few decades ago erous treatises on mathematics and physicists were still trying to con - physics, baying been formerly an of- struct a unitary conception of all na- ficial in the Ministry of. Education. tural phenomena by reducing the to. is explanation of the new Einstein tality of electric manifestations or theory follows: electrodynamics to atomic more - "The conception of so-called classi- meats; that is, to mechanical causes. cal plysios that each body through But when ingenious evperameuts its mass causes everywhere in space along these lines failed, the opposite a certain effect known as gravity has, way was chosen and attempts were in the relativity theory, been sup- made to intrepret the movements of planted by the conception that gravity masses as electrical phenomena. In manifests itself only in th. immediate other words an attempt was made to surroundings of the said body lu its regard'rnechanles as a part of electro• so-called gravity field of areas. dynamics. "According to this theory each body, The new work of Professor Einstein with its gravity area, acts upon space travels in this direction. It repre- 1n such a manner as to shape or re- sent an attempt,''by an extension of ,shape it. In other words, space can the relativity theory, to bring the no longer' as before be considered as mathematical laws of the gravity area something absolute, such as time used and of the electro-cdynamt� c area rote to be regarded by us. I consonance with each other and to "Bodies must accordingiy derive treat them from the same standpoint." to - be pocks. They have trap-door openings h That through which the seeds escape, cab- II'' bage fashion; but these run only about half -way from the bottom to the top, and the rest of the seeds are left in- side the pod to get out as best they can after the manner of the radish. Build Nests ' Some fish canfly, so it seems only fair that some others can build nests. The American predecessor of this But fish -nesting has never become the Russian radish -cabbage hybrid was de- favored occupation of naturalists and scribed fourteen years ago in. The small boys that bird -nesting is. Indeed, Journal of Hereditary, but did not at it may be doubted whether Izaak W al - tract much attention at the time and, ton himself knew that many species of since the strain died out for lack of nee- not only make nests but also seed, was lost sight of and pretty well guard them carefully until the eggs forgotten. are hatched and the young fry are The description then written by Mr. launched on their careers. But, we Gravatt, its originator, tallies fairly learn from Leon Bertin, who writes in well with that now given by Dr. liar- Larousse Mensuel (Paris), some fish pechenko, but differs in some respects. "build nests more or less analogous to For one thing, Mr. Gravatt's hybrid those of birds. These nests the writer had leaves more like a cabbage, but divides into seven classes: Nests they were much larger than the leaves selected by chance, prepared nests, of either parent. excavated nests, woven prepared nests, It grew into a tremendous bush, fill- nests of foam, nests of "beads" and ing one end of the greenhouse where living nests, Reading on of these it was set. Before it died of a bac- classifications, we learn: terial root rot, it hacl grown out of the The nest selected by chance is a ventilator of the greenhouse and part natural cavity, suitable to its needs, way down the roof on both sides. It found by the fish and adopted without bore huge numbers of flowers, but modification. It may be a crevice in never set a single fertile seed, ehmeptyclslhelleo naosubme submerged stone,r side of a ] shoe or fragment of pottery. The eggs are "It- is strange," says a cynic, "how laid ine a mass. or else deposited side rarely the woman for whom a, man gives up reputation and respectability Is worthy of the sacrifice." The dame's not worth the scandal, in fact. A. woman's . clothes are her senti- ments expressed in fabrics, says one of our leading novelists, and, as you .so often hear, there is very little sen- timent these days. Ing the•incubatiou and watches over it closely. He defends it, cleanses it and aerates it with boundless devo- tion. Ile does not eat during the per- iod, and can not be tempted from his task by the sign of prey. Males have been seen remaining close beside the eggs at low tide when the ground was bare. Prepared nests show distinct iin- erovement over these selected by chance. The fish does not content it- self with merely choosing a natural cavity. It clears it out, furnishes it, garnishes it with water plants, and sometimes does it with water plants, and sometimes does it best to camou- flage it. Examples of such nests are those of the goby and the parrot fish, so-called because of its vivid colors. After choosing a suitable fissure in a rock, the fish carries thither in its mouth fragments of algae with which it decorates the walls. After the eggs have been laid, the father fish mounts guard. The nest of the goby is usually one valve of a shell selected by the male. Yet in spite of the unpromising looks of the radish -cabbage children, Dr. Iiarpechenkc cultivated them care - and fibrous as the roots of regular cab- bages. Even in the second generation crossings with cabbage this trace of the radish in the rootsstill persisted. fully, saved such seed as they formed, When they came to produce their and took tender care of the grand- flowers, the hybrids again fevered bhildren plants also, though they turn- both sides of the house. They pro - ed out no better than their parents duced big, bushy growths of stalk, from a gardener's point ot view. } rather more than either parental type Why? What good reason could a i usually grows, and these stalks were geneticist In a government Institute 'heavily burdened with white 'flowers, Of Applied' Botany give visiting off.- intermediate in size and shape be- ,, elate, who were not scientists, for us- tween cabbage and radish flowers. ing good ground to raise such weeds? Inside, the stalks tended to be like Well, for ono thing, Dr. Karpe-1those of the radish, for they were ehenko had clone a thing rated as el-'.1bellow, and the cabbage stalk is type hioet impossible; he had made an "in- catty solid. tergeneric cross." And no matter how One unusual feature about the flow- iisless they may be, the offspring of • ers in the hybrids with extra ch'omo- tan intergenerie cross are such great I some counts was the tendency to pro - scientific curiosities that their mere t dace extra stamens. The normal existence is sufficient juetiflcatlon in stamen number in both radish and Itself. They are scarcer • than two -heeded calves or mathematical horses. only pace before in ;the history of plant breeding do we come upon a record of cross between a radish and a cab-; bage. That was made by an Afters- noticed, is the way the seed -pools are can, Dr, G. F. Gravatt of the II.. S. put together. Cabbage seer] -pods are long, slim affairs, opening en the sides with a pair of trap -doors running down the whole length, and shedding thein seeds through these crpeilines. Radish seed -pots are thick and stocky, witli a. tapering tip; they baste do natural mode of opening et all, and release their seeds only when crushed for de- caned. . ,, The pods of the hybrids are of'taken the Same s fe.en and shape as radish cabbageis six, but in these plants, so unlike their type, 'there . Were some- times eight stainens{. Perhaps the oddest thing about the structure of these cross -bred plants, and at the .ame time the,. most easily Departine nt of Agriculture, ` back in 0.910; but unlike the present hybrid it was completely sterile and left no descendents. So on the basis of rarity alone the• ob was justified, To most of tis, a hybrid Between a fattish and a cabbage may seem no levee remarkable than that eoinmon- plac(( cross that provides ns with intiies. But there is a differ,'ence, and a big Sinn. For tTie doiiirey and the interlaces with great skill." Reading on: The most beautiful examples of woven nests are those made by. the sticklebacks, little fish which wear sharp spines on their backs and sides. The architect and weaver is the male.. He begins by digging a little excavation at the bottom of the stream or pond and then carries thither, bit by bit, aquatic plants. These he holds in place by pebbles. The cellar of the nest 'being made, he erects a circular wall and covers ii with a dome. The materials are al. ways water plants woven together by the fish. It must be added that the clever builder is aided by a viscous secretion. which hardens quickly in a thread,- analogous to the silk spun.be silkworms and spiders, The stickle- back carries this back and forth, "sewing" his handiwork firmly to, gether. When the nest is finished the mals attracts first one female, then a sec end, then a third. These swim into the nest and deposit their eggs. Then there is the nest of'ilia African If it happensto be placed with the fist the suyo, which is a sort of hollow side up, like a soup plate, the basket constructed 0f aquatic plants. ingenious fish begins his task by turn- and floating on the surface of the ing it over. Then he worms his way water. Perhaps the mother of Moses under the shell and cleans it out he borrowed an idea from this for the ark side, enlarging the cavity by (digging of bulrushes in which she placed her in the ground underneath. Filially he child. Sometimes these fist cradles hides the nest under a layer of sand. thold as many as a thousand eggs: The nest is now ready. The female • I amber in color and as large as a enters, turas bottom side up and at- hazelnut. taches herself to the ceiling by a sort A number of_ fishes build nests el of sucker formed by her ventral fins. foam, that is, of a mass of viscous buts Then she moves slowly along, deposit- bles. Among these are the gouramis ing her eggs in a uniform layer. land the macropods. These admirable The excavated nest is a simple ' ornamental fish, adorned with brilliant cavity dug in the sand or earth at the metallic colors, have their origin for bottom of the water: The American the most part in China' and India, perches make their nests in this man- Living in marshy waters which are ner. The same is true of the cat fish. poor in oxygen, the gouramis and their The care .given to its young by the close relatives have acquired the cirri• cat fish is edifying. The father does ous habit of coining up to breathe the not content himself with guarding and air near the surface. They swallow protecting his little ones. He likewise rapidly a mouthful which is placed in by side in a uniform layer. Such nests cleans them with his gills, which he reserve in special labyrinthine organs uses like a brush. .Sometimes he even situated in the vicinity of the gills. are used by many fish of the littoral takes them in his mouth for this pur- Their . special fashion of nest -making pose and after cleaning ,them spits probably arises from this. In effect therm out. But it occasionally happens the nest of the gourami consists ot that a little cat fish slips down the bubbles of air expelled by the'enouth paternal gullet and serves for food. of the orale after having been covered Woven nests are achiteetural mar- with a viscous sieath which prevents vets, Mr. Bertin continues, telling us them from being crushed. that the fish "constructs them with Nests of beads have been discovered fragments of aquatic plants which it in the Sargasso Sea among the float- ing algae. These nests resemble large zone—biennies, for example, lump fish and butter .fish. The lump fish is found on. the coasts of Scotland and Norway, and has a length of from twenty to twenty-four inches and a proportionate width. It lays about 100,000 eggs at a time in a mass as large as a child's head. The Male takes care of the egg mass dur- &ural England Combines Business and Pleas"re WHEN HUN1'SMSN AND Feentits MEET and llurstev+ bluntsnten, hounds and fat-stbolc in the nlarket place at iscleubrltlge, Kent, at O1ci Surrey bags whose wall is formed by the eggs themselves, united by filaments at the two poles. Each bag is composed of at least 1,000,000 eggs. They may be compared to the bead bags which were popular among ladies a few years ago. Unhappily it is not known to exactly what fish these nests belong. .A. living nest is used by the bitten• ling, a sort of very small fresh -water carp. It is by no means the least re- markable of the nest -making fishes, but its methods are far from kind. It lays. its eggs in the inerior of a river mussel to which it deliberate confides Iihe task of rearing its progeny. Tlie female bears under her abate men a long tube which enables her tc introduce her eggs into the gills, of the rnussei. Observe nosy what passes on within this living nest, The eggs and embryos are arranged between the filaments of the gills. One naturalist tesimates an average of fifteen to each mussel employed. It is• extremely re* markable that (he embryos all loaves' their heads placed toward the edge at the gill, This a, most advantageous: position for there, since ;they receive thus more oxygen. Do the `roots of words" produce. • "flowers of Speech?" . Aunt -„'You think of studviug to be a docto, eh? Don't yen do 1t1" Young Man—"Why ilei, aunt?"' • Aril t --- j "Well, you can't got a practice till you are married, and you .can't get that vied until you 'get a praetidei that's aunt. Idly!"