A year or two since, a man brought from Ohio to the University of Iowa an innocent five-parted, digitate, black fungus. It was treasured in alcohol. Why? Because of its origin. An honest mechanic meeting with accident lost his fingers under the surgeon's knife. The amputated members were neglected, but presently discovered and duly buried in the garden. The following spring from the "identical spot" uprose a swarthy hand, black without, white within. The hand was a perfect _main-de-gloire_ for that sensation-loving community. The matter was discussed in newspapers. A long and careful account of the wonder was prepared, put in print and circulated among the friends of the deceased--fingers! "What fools we mortals be!" For sheer superstition and crass stupidity who may say that the nineteenth century may not yet discount the days of the virgin Queen? But I said at the outset that Shakespeare had in some instances anticipated modern scientific teaching. To illustrate this in its most striking instance, I am compelled to offer a somewhat long quotation (Winter's Tale, iv, 4, 76-106): "POLIXENES. Shepherdess, A fair one are you, well you fit our ages With flowers of winter. PERDITA. Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnation and streaked gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. POLIXENES. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? PERDITA. For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. POLIXENES. Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature. PERDITA. So it is. POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards."