MISCELLANY 



759 



irritated ; but, if merely touched with the 

 finder, he will fold up his legs, and feign 

 death. If again molested, the animal will 

 try to escape, and will employ his sting only 

 when driven to the wall. The katipo's nest is 

 a perfect sphere, and the eggs about the size 

 of mustard-seed. The changes undergone 

 by this animal in its progress toward matur- 

 ity are as follows : In the very young state 

 its body is white, with two linear series of 

 connected black spots, and an intermediate 

 line of pale red ; under parts brown ; legs 

 light brown, with black joints. In the next 

 stage, the fore-part of the body is yellow, 

 with two black "eye-spots," sides black, 

 with transverse marks of yellowish white; 

 dorsal stripe bright red, commencing higher 

 up than in the adult, and with the edges 

 serrated. At a more advanced age the 

 stripe on the back is brighter, with a narrow 

 border of yellow, and the thorax and legs 

 are nearly black. In the fully adult condi- 

 tion, the female is very handsome in form 

 and color. The body varies in size from 

 that of a pigeon-shot to that of a small green 

 pea ; and the outspread legs even of the 

 largest of these animals cover only a space 

 of three-quarters of an inch. The thorax 

 and body are black and shining, with a 

 stripe of bright orange-red down the centre 

 of the body. The male is considerably 

 smaller, having the body blackish brown, 

 with a faint-yellow line down the back. 



Prof. Agassiz's Estimate of Rew-Ehg- 

 land Education. The following significant 

 paragraph is from the Tribune : 



" Prof. Agassiz's speech before the Com- 

 mittee on Education at Boston, last week, 

 was practical, impetuous, and a little impa- 

 tient. His demand for a State appropriation 

 for the benefit of the Cambridge Museum 

 served as a text from which he drew a ser- 

 mon, unpleasant, but not untrue nor unne- 

 cessary. He warmly expressed his disap- 

 proval of the existing system of popular 

 education in America. Instead of using the 

 rich and growing intellectual material of 

 later years, he declared that our colleges 

 teach chiefly the traditional learning of the 

 middle ages. ' Harvard,' said the fiery pro- 

 fessor, ' is not a university ; it is only a 

 tolerably well-organized high-school.' Nor 

 is even this learning, in his eyes, the best of 



its kind ; it is merely the dregs of scholar- 

 ship. He brought up our grammar as an 

 example, referring to it as no longer a living 

 matter, but a reduction to formulas from 

 which all the living spirit has fled. As for 

 his darling, Natural Science, he contemplates 

 mournfully the want of thoroughness with 

 which its phenomena are taught in the com- 

 mon schools. The fault, he asserts, is that 

 of the teachers, who have no sort of thor- 

 ough knowledge in this direction, and who 

 cannot get it from the normal schools, where 

 instruction is given from text-books alone, 

 and in the poorest possible manner. The 

 schools of Massachusetts had round censure 

 from the good professor, and very much it 

 must have astonished the authorities of that 

 great State, who are incessantly ready to 

 fold their hands and go to heaven when 

 they think of their 'superior' school sys- 

 tem. Owing to the misplaced confidence 

 which they have in it, the professor thinks 

 that it might be easier to push a new course 

 of education in a new State earlier than in 

 New England." 



Ancient Bavarian Agriculture. The His- 

 torical Society of Munich has recently set 

 on foot an investigation of the remains of 

 ancient agriculture to be found in the neigh- 

 borhood of that city, and in other parts of 

 Bavaria. Garden-plots of an unknown anti- 

 quity have been discovered, many of them 

 assuming the form of a parallelogram, with 

 beds of equal length, breadth, and height ; 

 while others are in the form of a trapeze, 

 with beds of very unequal length. Often- 

 times wide and narrow beds alternate ; and 

 again beds are found side by side, the one 

 being ten times the length of the other. 



In height they vary from 1J to 3 feet or 

 over, and the soil is scooped up out of the 

 furrow and thrown up on the bed, uncover- 

 ing the gravel. There is no trace of drains 

 or water-courses dating from the period of 

 these gardens, though water-courses of a 

 later time are to be seen. In the middle of 

 one of these agricultural districts is always 

 found a free space where in all probability 

 the people had their dwellings, although we 

 find no trace of their abodes. If there ever 

 were houses there, they must have been 

 built of light material. Horseshoes are 

 found at various depths in the soil. These 



