SEASONAL CHANGES AND HISTORIES. 157 



that he has left." These differences, however, as 

 Humboldt and others long ago pointed out, have 

 a broader bearing than the above statements 

 would imply ; for they are characteristic of the 

 eastern shores of both worlds as opposed to the 

 western, the meteorological phenomena of the 

 eastern United States being almost precisely 

 paralleled by those of northern China, where 

 great excesses of temperature occur, with wide 

 variability, long summers and winters, and rapid 

 transitions. 



Perhaps on these grounds we can most simply 

 account for the difference in the number of broods 

 in certain butterflies on the two continents ; but, 

 if so, then it follows that we ought to anticipate 

 similar differences between the broods of some of 

 the species found both in Europe and in eastern 

 Asia ; a point of which we can assert absolutely 

 nothing, for want of data. These grounds, how- 

 ever, will certainly be insufficient to account for 

 the differences to which we have alluded in man ; 

 for what contrast could well be greater than that 

 existing between the national character of the 

 Chinese and that of the Americans ! We are 

 rather forced to believe that the causes of the dis- 

 tinction between the European and the American, 

 if these are due to physical agencies, must chiefly 

 be sought elsewhere. 



I have thus attempted to show that the lives of 



