[August, 
480 Observations of Bright Lines 
satisfaction in attempting any performance which it has 
not yet seen. Both these animals, to me at least, seem to 
have a reserve fund not merely of energy, but of intelli- 
gence, which, as in the case of the savage, is not ordinarily 
called upon in the normal business of their lives. How this 
intelligence can have been developed is to me a riddle, alike 
in the savage and in the ape. 
It has been often remarked that, in man, gestures, 
actions, feelings, conduCt of the most varied kind, is, in 
vulgar language, catching; that hysteria will spread through 
an establishment for young ladies or a nunnery as rapidly 
as can scarlet fever. May we not suppose that the tendency 
of monkeys and parrots to imitate the actions and sounds 
which they see and hear is a part of kindred origin ? 
VII. OBSERVATIONS OF BRIGHT LINES IN 
THE SPECTRA OF FIXED STARS. 
S ^HE speCtra of certain fixed stars have been made the 
K subject of careful and frequent observations, and the 
^ results obtained have led astronomers and physicists 
to some interesting conclusions. They have inferred, for 
instance, a general identity of the elementary chemical 
composition of the universe, or at least of all of the stars 
which they have been able to examine. They have also 
classified the stars according, to their apparent age. First, 
namely, come those which give out a bluish white light, and 
are therefore still in the most intense state of ignition. 
Secondly, those which, like our Sun, give out a more yel- 
lowish white light, and which have probably lost some of 
their original heat. Lastly comes a class whose light is 
reddish, and which may therefore be supposed, by analogy 
with terrestrial fires, to have cooled down considerably. 
But later observations, especially those of H. Eugen von 
Gothard and H. von Konkolly, as described in the “ Astro- 
nomische Nachrichten ” and in the “ Naturforscher,” point 
to frequent changes in the physical condition of certain 
