[Sphinxes, or Hawk-moths. 1, 1, 1, Acheronta atropos; 2, 2, Smerinthus ocellatus; 3, 3, Sphinx Ligustri; 4, 4, 4, Smeranthus Populi; 5, 5, 5, Sphecia apiformis; 6, 6, Macroglossa Stellatarum; 7, Trochilium cynipiforme.]

This beautiful species is widely distributed through England, but is rare in Scotland; on the Continent it is abundant. It makes its appearance in May; it varies in the expanse of its wings from two inches and three-quarters to three inches and three-quarters. With respect to great rapidity of flight and elonga- The fore-wings are of a pale rosy ash, variegated with tion of the proboscis, one remarkable species, the pale chocolate brown and undulated marks of dusky. Death's-head Hawk-moth, forms an exception. Con- The hind-wings are of a rose pink, shaded off to grey sequently it cannot be considered as typical of this on the margin, and marked near the inner angle with family; yet such has a talented zoclogist regarded it,- a large black spot, with a pale blue ocellus, the middle and why? Because it carries on its thorax the sign being of a slaty black. The caterpillar is of a very and seal of the symbol which nature designed it to be, pale green, with minute black tubercles, and eight in impressing upon it the figure of the human skull, oblique pale bars along the sides. The lateral spiracles the emblem of death and the grave; whilst the threaten- are inarked by rosy brown. It feeds on the willow and ing attitudes of the caterpillar, and the depth at which sallow, and occasionally on the apple, sloe, &c. The it buries itself in order to become a chrysalis, as if seek-chrysalis form is assumed in September, and the moth ing Hades, add claims to its becoming the ill-omened appears in May. representative of the family!

horn black above and yellow beneath. On each side of the head is a black mark. The spiracles are orange, and there are seven oblique stripes on the sides, of purple and white. Towards the middle of September the caterpillar buries itself in the earth, and changes into a dark brown chrysalis. The moth appears in June or July.

4. The Poplar Hawk-moth (Smerinthus Populi), Sphinx Populi, Linn.

This species is very common, occurring in England and the south of Scotland. Its expansion of wings is often more than four inches. The upper wings are of a delicate lilac grey, with undulations of brown. The base of the hinder wings is broadly ferruginous. The body pale lilac grey. The males have the markings of the wings deeper than the females. The caterpillar is pale green, sprinkled with minute white tubercles: the spiracles and membranous feet are reddish; oblique lateral lines pale yellow. The food of the caterpillar consists of the leaves of the willow-poplar and aspen the moth appears from the end of June to the middle of August, and sometimes as late as September. 5. The Hornet-moth (Sphecia apiformis). This small but very beautiful moth is of a ish black the head and palpi are orange coloured; the thorax has a large orange patch on each side in front, and two ochre patches on the disc behind. The abdomen is ringed with orange and black. The wings are narrowly edged with ochre brown; but everywhere else transparent, like the wings of a wasp or hornet.

The caterpillar is thick and whitish; and feeds upon the wood of the trunks of willow and aspen trees, to which it often occasions great damage. The pupa is elongated and of a dark chesnut colour; this stage is assumed in April, and the perfect insect is produced

at the end of June.

6. The Humming-bird Moth (Macroglossa stellatarum.)

and Shropshire. It is of a blue-black colour; on the head is a white stripe, and the collar and palpi are yellow. The thorax has a yellow stripe on each side, and the breast a yellow spot; the abdomen has a yellow mark at the base, and three yellow bands, the last of which is double in the male. The wings, which are transparent, like those of a gall-fly, have the veins and margins brown, glossed with blue and fulvous, and a transverse, lunate, central spot of orange margined with black on the outside. Legs yellow.

The caterpillar is whitish, with a brown head, and is found under the bark of the oak and birch. The insect appears in June.

Seats of

Education in Germany and America.-The two most strongly contrasted cases which can be found are probably those of Germany and the United States. In the United States, it is well known, a provision of university education is made as ample as that of schools for an earlier stage; yet no one pretends that a highly finished education is to be looked for in that country. The cause is obvious. In a young nation, the great common brown-objects of life are entered upon earlier, and every preparatory process is gone through in a more superficial manner. learning are numerous and fully attended, both in Germany and ledge. Here the agreement ends. The German student may, America, and they testify in each to a pervading desire of knowwithout being singular, remain within the walls of his college till time silvers his hairs; or he has even been known to pass eighteen years among his books, without crossing the threshold of his study. The young American, meanwhile, satisfied at the end of three years that he knows as much as his neighbours, settles in a home, engages in farming or commerce, and plunges into what alone he considers the business of life. Each of these pursues his appropriate objects: each is right in his own way: but the difference of pursuit indicates a wider difference of sentiment between the two countries than the abundance of the means of learning in each indicates a resemblance. The observer must therefore mark not only what and how many are the seats of learning, but who frequent them; whether there are many, past the season of youth, who make study the business of their lives; or whether all are of that class who regard study merely as a part of the preparation which they are ordained to make for the accomplishment of the commonest aims of life. He can scarcely take his evening's walk in the precincts of a university without observing a difference so wide as this. The great importance of the fact lies in this,-that increase of knowledge is necessary to the secure enlargement of freedom. Germany may not, it is true, require learning in her youth for political purposes, but because learning has become the taste, the characteristic honour of the nation; but this knowledge will infallibly work out, sooner or later, her political regeneration. America requires knowledge in her sons because her political existence itself depends upon their mental competency. The two countries will probably approximate gradually towards a sympathy which is at present out of the question. As America becomes more fully peopled, a literature will grow up within her, and study will assume its place among the chief objects of life. The great ideas which are the employment of the best minds of Germany must work their way out into action; and new and immediately practical kinds of knowledge will mingle themselves, more and more largely, with those to which she has been, in times past, devoted. The two countries may thus fall into a sympathetic correspondence on the mighty subjects of human government and human learning, and the grand idea of liberty may be made more manifest in the one, and disciplined and enriched in the other.-Miss Martineau's How to ObserveMorals and Manners.'

Of this interesting species three broods appear every year, namely, in April, June, and September, and specimens have been taken as late as Christmas; indeed it is probable that some occasionally live through the winter. "This interesting species," says Mr. Curtis, "in the winged state frequents gardens, flying in the sunny weather between the hours of ten and twelve in the morning, and those of two and four in the afternoon. Its food is the nectareous juice of tube-bearing flowers. This it extracts with amazing address by the assistance of its exserted spiral tongue, inimitably poising itself all the while on rapidly vibrating wings, whence its name of humming-bird. It is delightful indeed to an entomological eye to behold and contemplate the dexterity exhibited by this charming insect whilst it sails, all gaiety and grace, round the tall sprig of a larkspur, or other flower, probing to the very bottom every single tube, neglecting none, and trying no one twice.' Fortunately the species is by no means of rare occurrence in nearly every part of the kingdom, so that opportunities of observing it are not uncommon.

The expansion of the wings of this moth is nearly two inches; they are of a dusky brown colour, with waved transverse bars of black. The hinder wings are orange coloured. The body is varied with yellow and black.

The caterpillar is dark green, with a dusky line down the back, and a white lateral longitudinal line. Legs yellow.

7. The Golden-tail Hawk-moth (Trochilium cynipiforme), Sphinx chrysorrhoea, Donov.

This is a small species, and by no means common. It has been taken in the woods of Kent and Surrey; and about London and Cheltenham; in Bedfordshire

ANIMAL MOTION.-No. VII. Running. The object of calling into action the locomotive organs as we employ them in running, is to acquire a greater velocity than can be attained in walking. On investigation it is found that the same motions of the body recur after each double step, as in walking. In running, the time of action is divided into two periods, in one of which the body is supported on one leg, and in the other it is not supported on either, and this constitutes the principal difference between running and walking; for in the latter the body is always supported either by one or both legs.

The

I swing before the other has finished swinging.
forces which are employed in running, like those of
walking, consist of extension, gravity, and resistance.
We are not able to propel the centre of gravity
horizontally in running, though the undulations are
found by observation to be less than in walking; for it
is clear that, as soon as both legs are lifted from the
ground, it must fall during some portion of the time it
is unsupported, and so form a series of curves. If the
legs were inflexible, the centre of gravity would de-
scribe a series of curves as in Fig. 2. The movements
Fig. 2.

Let us now consider the motions of the legs in running, as we have before done in walking, and for that purpose let us trace their action from the beginning to the end of a step. When the hinder leg, on which the trunk was supported, having been extended to its greatest length, is raised from the ground and begins to swing forward, we observe that the foremost leg has not yet reached the ground, so that both legs are found swinging at the same time during a portion of the step. When the foremost leg reaches the ground, which it does in a vertical position, the trunk is supported on it, and the hinder leg continues to oscillate forwards, whilst the supporting leg, having turned on the ball of the foot as on a pivot, becomes stretched to its extreme length, and is in its turn raised from the earth before the swinging leg has reached it; and when the latter is placed on the ground and is fully elongated, so as to be on the point of rising again, a double step has been accomplished, the single step evidently ending at the In order to find the amount of the vertical undulamoment when the other leg reached the corresponding tions of the body in running, the Messrs. Weber position. The effect of both legs swinging simulta- viewed the runner through a telescope adapted for the neously, though for a very short period, is, that in run- purpose. They estimated the undulations of the body ning the duration of the step is less than the time of to be from three-fourths of an inch to one inch and a the half-oscillation of the leg, whilst in quickest walk-quarter, and the time of a step to be from one-fifth to ing it just exactly equals it, and in slow walking it is greater than this semi-oscillation. These effects will, perhaps, be made more intelligible by the annexed Fig. 1, where a represents slow walking, the straight Fig. 1.

of the body in walking and running more nearly resemble each other according as the times wherein both legs are on the ground, in the former case, and both legs are in the air, in the latter, are diminished; and the limit to which each of these motions continually approaches is, when the body is never without support, but that support is never more than one leg. As the resistance of the air to the motion of the body is greater in running than in walking, the trunk is more inclined in the path of motion, to keep it in a state of equilibrium.

•

portions of the line being the times when both legs are on the ground; b represents quickest walking, wherein each leg succeeds the other in swinging without interruption; and crunning, wherein one leg begins to

one-fourth of a second; of this time the body swings freely in the air one-tenth, and falls one-fifteenth of a second. If we calculate the space through which the body falls in the same time, by the law of falling bodies, it will be found that the centre of gravity descends about eight-tenths of an inch.

It has been seen in No. VI., Fig. 1, that in walking, the period during which the trunk is supported is longer than that in which the leg whilst swinging is supported by the trunk. Now, in running, the reverse takes place, and the time in which the leg is resting on the ground is shorter than that in which it hangs suspended from the trunk.

We will now illustrate these periods by a diagram. In Fig. 3, let the upper line represent the motion of the left, and the under line that of the right leg, in the act of running, the curved portions being the periods of the leg swinging in the air, and the straight the Fig. 3.

periods of its resting on the ground, which periods are | defined by the cross lines. The figures 1, 0, denote that one or neither of the legs is on the ground. The line between the first spaces 1 and 0, at the left end of the figure, indicates the beginning of a step corresponding with the description already given, that is, the instant when the left leg is raised from the ground, and before the right has reached it.

ing, are sensibly longer than the straight lines; and if we remember that the resting leg rises from the earth before the other touches it, we at once see that it could not be otherwise; and it also follows, from the same reason, that the straight lines showing the portion of the step when the leg is on the ground, must be equidistant from the extremities of the curves respectively opposite to them.

We observe that the chords of the curved lines, In running, the square of the length of the extended which represent the periods whilst the legs are swing-leg is equal to the sum of the squares of the horizontal

space described by the centre of gravity, during the | it being nearly equal in both cases to the duration of time the one leg rests on the ground, and of the height a semi-oscillation of the leg.

In fact the time of a step in running differs scarcely a pause between each step, and this is not resorted to in a perceptible manner from that of quickest walking, as a mode of progression, but rather to accomplish a