Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/420

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Smoke is not composed of gases only, but of solid, or perhaps partly liquid, particles, which are mixed with the gases and carried along by them. It is these particles of matter that are visible to the eye, and not the gases themselves.

Most of the varieties of black raspberries—in commerce known as “blackcaps”— produce strong canes one season, on which, the following year, are borne the fruiting branches, after which this cane dies. Unusual conditions, however, often result in unusual developments, so that this rule is not always strictly adhered to in nature, though the normal blackcap raspberry is more regular in this respect than most of its near relatives.

There are a number of red raspberries, for instance, which make a regular practice of fruiting freely in the fall on the terminals of that year’s growth. It may be, in the instance you cite, that the stems producing these late flower buds were in reality extra strong shoots borne from near the base of the terminal stems of last year. After all, if this blackcap is a seedling, and shows a tendency to produce flower buds on new canes, it might be worth your while to give it ample opportunity to develop, as it may prove to be a new variety which would have value for garden purposes.

Humming-birds are known to feed very largely on insects which they gather from the flowers, but whether they can hear insects from a distance, I am sure I do not know.—, Curator of Birds,, New York City.

The tissues of the body have more salts than are usually found in fresh water. When you have more salt on one side of an animal membrane than on the other, nature tries to equalize the amount on both sides. Salts, leaving the tissues of the hands to go into the water, leave the cells partly emptied of their contents. They do not hold together well, and “cracks” result.—