Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/250

 238 except the few whom I took to the trees and showed the philosophy of it, and even they seemed to regret that I had spoiled a pet delusion."

In his "Origin of Species," page 97, Mr. Darwin, in speaking of the inability of the hive-bee to suck nectar from the red-clover flowers, says: "I have been assured that when red clover has been mown, the flowers of the second crop are somewhat smaller, and that these are visited by many hive-bees. I do not know whether this statement is accurate, nor whether another published statement can be trusted, namely, that the Ligurian bee, which is generally considered a mere variety, and which freely crosses with the common hive-bee, is able to reach and suck the nectar of the common red clover."

Both of these statements Mr. Morgan confirms, and, acting on the fact that the Ligurian or Italian bee can procure honey not only from the red clover but other flowers of his section, in which the nectar is inaccessible to the common or black bee, he has Italianized his whole apiary by crossing the black and Ligurian bees, and finds the cross stronger and better honey-gatherers than the common bee. These facts, as coming from a practical apiarian, may be interesting to the readers of, and therefore I have ventured to send them to you.M. B. C.



WO great tendencies of modern thought are every year more and more marked: one relating to its character, and the other to the form of its expression. The thinking of the age is taking a scientific direction, and becoming more profoundly imbued with the scientific spirit, while the leading minds of all nations are contributing their choicest work for periodical publication. Not only are old sciences perfecting and new ones arising with a rapid development of positive knowledge, but the method of the movement is steadily extending to all spheres of opinion, and influencing important questions with which it was long supposed that science had nothing to do. It is one of the marked effects of the recent growth and diffusion of the scientific spirit that it is giving a new earnestness and seriousness to literary effort, bringing forward questions of universal interest into greater prominence, and inducing in the most eminent minds a desire to communicate more directly and immediately with the people, by the readiest modes of publication. Hence, in England, France, and Germany, as well as in this country, the best thought appears in the popular magazines. A further result of this tendency to earnestness, in recent periodical writing, is that authors are taking the responsibility of their work before the public, by attaching their names to their magazine contributions. The old and vicious system of anonymous writing in the reviews is declining, and giving place to the open, manly, and honest expression of the writer's convictions. Through the operation of such causes, periodical literature is acquiring a weight and influence in our time much greater than it has ever had before.

was established in recognition of these tendencies, and to make the vigorous, valuable, and independent intellectual work of the age, wherever done, more accessible to American readers. We have drawn, for our articles, from foreign sources, because science is of no nationality, and it is an obvious dictate of commonsense to get the best things wherever they are to be had. This policy has been approved by the public, and now, after ten volumes have appeared, we find our limits so inadequate that an increase of facilities becomes necessary to secure the object for which the magazine was started. 