has Pres. Starr performed the most useful and lasting work of his life. He was appointed a member of this board in 1864, and three years after was elected its president. To this honorable and responsible office, he was chosen annually thereafter by his associate regents. His insight into educational problems and methods; his rare abilities as a business man; his careful and courteous regard for the opinions and preferences of others; his habits of close and independent thinking; his accurate judgment and his stern integrity of character; all qualified him for his leading position in the management of our Normal School enterprises, which must be classed among the most distinguished and successful movements ever inaugurated by our state. It would not be appropriate in this article to describe the chaotic condition of the initial efforts of the state to create a Normal school system, when Pres. Starr became a member of the board. We have not the time even to outline the operations of this board for the past fourteen years in maintaining yearly our institute work, in the organization of the four Normal schools, in the judicious expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the support of them, and in employing their faculties and supervising their instruction and the progress of their pupils. A large share of this varied and difficult labor fell to Pres. Starr. His family state that he gave at least one-half of his time during all these years, in attention to the duties of this position. He conducted for the Normal School Board an extensive correspondence; he attended all the meetings of the regents, as well as those of several of the important committees, serving generally as their chairman; he frequently conferred with the presidents and other teachers of the schools; he visited them quite often, and inspected minutely their operations. His knowledge of every part of this gigantic system was complete and accurate. Quiet in his demeanor, modest in all his opinions, and never forward in presenting his plans, scarcely was a measure of any importance ever acted upon by the board or its committees, without consulting with him or without obtaiving his approval. Few persons know so well as the older members of this board how much the present efficiency and the past success of our Normal schools are due to his labors and judgment. I apprehend that none of us ever fully comprehended how great was the inmost satisfaction of his heart in witnessing the beginning and growth of school after school, and in supplying the means of high culture to so many youth in the state, who would be subsequently employed as teachers in our public schools. Several times in the past year, as I have con

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versed with him in reference to some feature of the schools, the work of some teachers therein, and the attainments of some classes under their instruction, I have seen the large tears start in his deep set eyes and roll down his undemonstrative face.

His character is so well known to the teachers of the state, that I need not describe at length its traits. His interest in the passing events of the day was peculiarly prominent. On the railroad trains; at the hotels; and in his own home, unless, employed by pressing duties, you would find him reading carefully the daily newspapers. While prostrated in his last illness, his entreaties to the attending physician to be permitted to examine the latest papers, were really distressing. His love for some of the best works in our literature was permanent. He even cultivated the poetical spirit, and composed at different periods of his life some exquisite vei ses, showing remarkable sweetness of rhythm, deep and earnest feeling, and the most refined sentiments. His hatred of pretention and sham, and of duplicity and meanness, was prompt and crushing in its expression. His self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice in the administration of our Normal schools were admirable. Associated with him for ten years in this work, I do not remember a single act or suggestion of his which could be interpreted as selfish. His judgment of men and their conduct was profound and just. A lady of culture and high social standing who was thoroughly acquainted with him said, while lamenting his death: “I would prefer to have submitted to him above all other human beings I have ever known, all the thoughts and acts of my life; and to abide by his decision." He was thoughtful and independent in the formation of his opinions, and possessed some of the dignity of an apostle and the firmness of a martyr, in maintaining his ideas of right and duty. He required in all workings under his supervision the most conscientious fidelity, and he exhibited that exalted integrity in private and public life, which was the natural fruit of a cultivated, pure, noble and upright spirit.

a

The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust. Nor can we attain to any knowledge except by like process.

EDUCATION is to inspire the love of truth as the supreme good, and to clarify the vision of the intellect to discern it.

The worst education which teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.

2- Vol. IX.- No. 10

ENTOMOLOGY IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS - VII.

There are yet at least eight well-defined families of the Lepidoptera. Of these, the Aegeriadae are represented by the fewest species. These are very characteristic in appearance. They are small, quickly-flying insects, delighting in the sunshine, and, as they hover over and dart amid the flowers, may be easily be mistaken for bees. They are provided with conspicuous tufts at the extremity of the abdomen, and these they are able to expand in flight.

The Sphingidae embrace a quite considerable number of species, seventy-eight being enumerated in the check-list of North American species, prepared by Prof. Grote in 1877. These are commonly known as hawk-moths, or humming-bird moths, and are large, heavy-bodied insects, with long, sharp wings, by means of which they fly with wonderful rapidity. The large hairless caterpillars that infest the tomato plant are larvae of sphinx moths. Their attitude in

repose has reminded some one of the Sphinx, hence the name.

The Zygaenidae number less than fifty species, but are important as forming, so to speak, the connecting link between the diurnal and the nocturnal. Lepidoptera. They may be recognized by their long and comparatively narrow wings, which, however, are rounded at the extremity, by their brilliant colors, by the antennae, which are conspicuously swollen centrally, and by their unusually slow flight.

The Bombycidae constitute a very large family of moths, varying greatly in size, color and other specific characteristics. They are crepuscular or nocturnal in habit, and many fly even with sluggishness. The small sunken head, the pectinated antennae, and the exceedingly short tongue will usually suffice to distinguish individuals of this family. The large cocoon-constructing caterpillars, the larvæ of the moths kpown as Cecropia, Polyphemus, Luna, etc., belong here, as well as the numerous hairy larvæ, commonly known as woolly bears. To this family, in North America, belong between two hundred and three hundred species.

The Noctuidae or night-flyers proper, as the name implies, constitute the largest of the families of the Lepidoptera, there being already described from North America more than twelve hundred species. To this family belong all the numerous plainly colored moths or millers which, attracted by the light, sometimes annoy us so much by fluttering about our rooms in summer evenings. And yet there are

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hundreds of species, many of them clad in the most gaudy vestments, which never voluntarily come out from the darkness of the night. These may be obtained, to enrich the cabinet, only by the device of sugaring, already described. Individuals of this family have peculiar markings on the forewings, which at once distinguish them from moths of other families. A more or less conspicuous reniform spot, with an accompanying dot, varying in color in different species, may nearly always be discerned, even on the dingiest examples.

The Geometridae or Geometers receive their family name from the peculiar style of locomotion adopted by their larvæ. These are the 80-called “loopers" or "span-worms." The larva, grasping firmly with his forward feet the surface on which he is moving, bows his back upwards so as to bring the rear feet up as closely as possible to the forward ones. The rear ones now hold fast as the forward ones loosen their hold, and, as the body flattens down to the surface, the caterpillar thus gains at each looping a space equal to perhaps onehalf of its length. The moths of this family have, in many instances, wings equalling in with those of the butterflies; the antennæ are often pectinated in the male, while they are simply filiform in the female. The whole structure of the moth is so slight that a specimen prepared for the cabinet will frequently be destroyed by a sudden puff of breath from the lungs.

The Tortricidae derive their name from the peculiar habits of the larvæ. These, while feeding and especially when preparing to moult, roll together leaves in such a way as to form a cozy tenement for the provident occupants. These moths are all small, and are also peculiar by reason of their wide forewings, the contour of which is gracefully curved.

The Tineidce embrace all the so-called leaf-miners. They are indeed tiny when their larvæ can make homes for themselves within the tissue of leaves, while they are yet in the preparatory stages of their existence. Their wings are narrow and sharp, the distinction between them and the Tortricidæ being thus very evident. The wings are also ornamented with elegant fringes, which, under a microscope, present a most beautiful appearance.

The Pterophoridæ also have fringes to the wings, but they are distinct in having one or both pairs of wings also deeply cleft, so as to suggest a dactylic structure, hence the family name. Specimens of the Pterophoridae, or Plume-moths, can almost always be obtained on the blossoms of thistles. For more extensive information on the sub

ject of the Lepidoptera, the inquisitive reader is referred to the following works:

Morris' Synopsis of the Lepidoptera, published by the Smithsonian Institution.

Packard's Guide to the Study of Insects.
Harris' Insects of Massachusetts Injurious to Vegetation.
Edwards's Butterflies of North America.

The publications of scientific societies already mentioned, have numerous descriptions scattered throughout their whole extent. In particular may be noted Vol. III of the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia, as containing Dr. Packard's Monograph of the Bombycidæ, and the three volumes of the Buffalo Bulletin, which contain a great number of descriptions of reeent discoveries among the Noctuidæ.

The Geometridæ have been very fully described and figured by Dr. Packard in an exhaustive monograph of some 700 pp., 4to., published by the authority of the U. S. goverment, and issued as a part of Prof. Hayden's report of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories.

0. S. WESTCOTT.

NOTE. In closing, for the present at least, this series of bastily written articles ou a very attractive and well-nigh inexhaustible topic, the author takes this occasion to say that if any teacher or other person has become so far interested in the matter as to desire to establish a cabinet, he will be very happy to lend all the assietance in his power by naming any insects that may be foi warded to his address. (Racine, Wleconsin.) For this purpose two sets of insects should be arranged and carefully nombered in duplicate. One of these sets being forwarded to the subscriber, he will return the names by mail to the party sending the insects. If the specie meds are "set," they should be tightly pioned within a cork-lined box, and this box placed within another one, a packing of cotton, tow or fine shavings being placed in the space between the box.:8, that the jar in transportation may not loosen the hold of the pins. If the insects are not set, Lepidoptera may be arranged with the wings touching each other over the back, and then carefully folded in tissue paper, and sent packed in an unyielding box of wood or tin. Other insects may aleo be wrapped in tissue paper, no special arrangement of the parts being required. Boxes of material arranged in this manner must, however, in all cases be filled, that there be no jostling of the conteats whatever.

0. S. W.

TEACHERS should remember that surroundings exert a great educational influence. If the teacher is neat and tasty in his attire, the pupils will be apt to be so also. The teacher's influence is ever around the child, and should the teacher be slovenly, come into the school collarless, or with other untidy features of dress, talk in a rough manner, and indulge in the frequent use of slang phrases, he educates the children to cultivate just such habits.