ae 
1134 The number of Segments [ November, 
color-laboratory and then affrighted by their pranks had fled, 
leaving all this splendor blazing unknown under the fierce sun of 
the desert—for a desert it is in everything save color. The Ar 
karinga creek, which arises in the Musgrave range, in its south- 
erly flow has cut itself a passage through these beds. On each 
side are cliffs 400 or 500 feet high wrought into the strangest of 
shapes and bedecked with the gaudiest colors. It seems as if 
nature wished to show what she could do when she took the 
artist’s tools in her own hand. But the lesson is lost, for few 
mortal eyes, save now and then a wandering black fellow, more 
intent on hunting lizards for his dinner than esthetic worship, 
have ever beheld this gigantic sport of Dame Nature. But the 
eye tires of it,and soon is fain to turn for rest to the somber 
black-green of the scrub foliage. With the exception of this 
brilliant tract all the rest of the interior consists of the dullest 
and most prosaic country; sandhills and stony table-lands ad 
nauseam, 
Such is a brief and necessarily imperfect description of the 
great Australian desert. We can see that Australia, though often 
called paradoxical, is not so, but conforms to the laws of w 
nental development. The outlines of the continent have existed 
from the earliest times, and the whole has gradually been built 
up, step by step, until we find it as at the present time. There 
been no paradoxical break in nature’s handiwork nor in her laws. 
We see here the same grand, impassive uniformity, the same dis- 
regard for time that ever characterized her work, whether p 
the molding of a germ of life, the elevation of the Alps or ve : 
creation of a solar system. Future researches may amplify n 
conclusions drawn in this paper, but the main facts will remat 
unaltered. 
A’ 4 
Me 
THE NUMBER OF SEGMENTS IN THE HEAD 
WINGED INSECTS: 
BY A. S. PACKARD, JR. ; a i 
B. a study of the structure of the head of adult inse ee 
very difficult, if not impossible, to determine the n" givet 
segments in the head of winged insects. The number ® > 
ical CO 
_ Extracted. from the forthcoming third report of the U. S. Entomological 
mission, 
OF 
