The principal families of the tetramerous coleoptera are the Curculionida, the Cerambycide and the Chrysomelidæ.

The peculiar characteristic of the Curculionidae is apparent from their more common name of snout-beetles, the fore part of the head being prolonged into a snout, which in some cases is many times the length of the rest of the head and sometimes even exceeds the length of the entire body besides. It is stated on good authority that this family alone comprises more than 10,000 different species. They are vegetable feeders and hence extensively injurious to the horticulturist and the farmer. The pomologist especially has reason to dread some of the individuals of this family. The peach curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar, Herbst) needs no introduction to them.*

The Cerambycidæ are also vegetable feeders. They are, however, perhaps less injurious, as they, in the larva state, feed largely upon decaying timber. They are sometimes called the Longicorns or Longhorns. This suggests a special peculiarity. Almost all are provided with antennæ unusually prolonged, so that frequently in the case of the males the antennæ are two or three times as long as the body, which is itself noticeably elongated. Coleopterous larvæ in general, require a long time in which to complete the cycle of their transformations, previous to their appearance as perfect imagines, and larvæ of these wood-boring beetles are famous for their longevity. Well-authenticated intances are recorded where a perfect beetle of this family has made its appearance from the solid wood of furniture which had been in constant use for more than a score of years, the inevitable inference being that his larval life had continued during this long period. +

The Chrysomelidæ embrace a vast number of short, thick-set insects, with antennæ not specially prolonged, but sometimes a little thickened toward the ends. They are also vegetable feeders, are of various colors, and may at once be recognized, if we suggest as a type, the potato-beetle, (Chrysomela decem-lineata, Say), whichduring the past fifteen or twenty years has spread itself over the whole land and is recognized by every farmer's boy as one of our greatest pests. I

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In the heteromerous group of coleoptera we will confine our attention to two families, the Meloide and the Tenebrionida. The individuals of the former are long and narrow, provided with flexible yielding elytra and are noticeable by reason of the evident neck which unites the head and the thorax. The most prominent individuals of this family are commonly known as blister-beetles. The “Spanishfly" belongs here and of our indigenous material any one may recall the two or three species of blister-beetles, which in many localities vie with the Colorado potato beetle in ruining the potato crop.*

The Tenebrionide are represented most extensively in America in the region west of the Mississippi river, and, indeed, it might with truth be said that they with the exception of a few genera are confined to the region

ton west of the mouth of the Platte river. From here, as one proceeds westward, the representatives of this family increase in genera and species and individuals until on the Pacific slope they become the most numerous of all the families of the order. The beetles of this family are largely nocturnal in habit and dingy, even black in color, doubly justifying the name of Tenebrionidæ, which has been assigned to them. +

0. S. WESTCOTT. [To be continued.]

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YEAR by year teachers' institutes are becoming more valuable as their legitimate work is better understood. They have become a powerful agency in educating teachers who have po better way of obtaining normal instruction, and in educating public sentiment; and thousands of teachers every year go out from these discussions and instructions with clearer views of their respective duties, with a determination to do better service in the future, and with a higher inspiration for their calling. - Supt. C. A. Gouer, Mich.

Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects, inflict pains, and a single hair may stop a'vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since few great ones are let on long leases.

SELECTED.

SKETCHES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-IX.

PROF. T. N. HASKELL.

In 1867, T. N. Haskell, A. M., was called to the chair of rhetoric and English literature in the University, which he filled with credit until 1868, when he resigned. He was born in Chautauqua county, New York, January 20, 1826, but was taken in his infancy to Bloomfield, Trumbull county, Ohio. His parents died when he was young, leaving him entirely dependent upon his own resources for an education. He commenced teaching in Warren, the county seat of Trumbull county, when only sixteen years of age. He graduated at the Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, in 1851. He afterwards studied and taught two years in Oberlin College, same state. Prof. Haskell at one time presided over Wayne Academy, in Ashtabula county, Ohio; was principal of the high school at Sandusky, in that state, and of a female seminary in New York city. He spent one year in Andover Theological Seminary. While there, he married a daughter of President Justin Edwards. He was graduated from Union Theological Seminary, in New York, in 1854, and went at once to the pastorate of the Western Presbyterian church, Washington city; afterwards called to Boston, where he was a settled pastor for eight years. He traveled a year in foreign countries, and then came to Wisconsin to accept the chair tendered him in the University. He subsequently preached in Aurora, Illinois, until the health of his family compelled him to change his residence. He removed to Denver, Colorado, in 1873, where he still resides.

Prof. Haskell is a fluent speaker and ready writer. Before leaving Illinois, he contributed several political articles to the press and made a number of political speeches (he is a republican in politics), which were declared by some of the prominent members of his party to be of a superior order. So, also, in Colorado, where the state senate, in March, 1877, unanimously affirmed that his political speeches in the previous presidential campaign were distinguished for their statesmanlike ability, scholarly accuracy and candor, and were highly appreciated by thinking men of all political affinities and faiths. He has

cultivated the lecture field with marked success, his favorite topic being descriptions of oriental countries.

Prof. Haskell has written fugitive pieces of poetry of considerable merit. Among these may be mentioned, “The Country's Call to Arms,” and a “Centennial Thanksgiving Hymn." An ode composed for Lincoln's funeral obsequies, published in the National Intelligencer of April 19, 1865, is worthy of commendation. His prose writings are numerous. Many of his sermons, sketches, memoirs, essays, and addresses, have been printed. He was instrumental in starting, in 1874, the Colorado College, at Colorado Springs, the first institution of the kind in the Rocky mountains; and his address and report before the general Congregational Conference of January 20, of that year, in furtherance of the project, were interesting.

At the educational convention held in Denver, in December, 1875,* Prof Haskell, from the committee on education of Spanish children, reported a series of resolutions, advocating the employment by the legislature of a Spanish-speaking assistant superintendent for three months in each year for three years, among Mexico-Spanish citizens, in developing the English common school system for the benefit of their children. City school boards were asked to invite Spanish youth to attend their high schools free of charge. The resolutions commended the study and colloquial use of the Spanish language to teachers, and recommended that a popular compendium of the common school system and its modes of usefulness to the rising generation of American citizens of all classes, be prepared and published in Spanish.

Prof. Haskell paints pen-pictures with fidelity. Take these few words upon

the Nile: “Here we are now on the bosom of that marvelous river. It is the cool of the day in Egypt. The air is most charming, and clearer than crystal. The waters are unusually placid. The current beneath us is vigorous but even. The banks are low, level and fertile - covered with a rich compost of sand and slime. Every thing visible is suggestive of the value of this noble river to all this region. It was Herodotus who wrote thousands of years ago when beholding it, ‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile.'

PROF. S. P. LATHROP. The board of regents at their annual meeting in February, 1854, made choice of Stephen Pearl Lathrop, M. D., of Beloit College, to

* Resoluciones en favor de instruccion en la lengua Castellana, paradas par la convencion educacional, convenida en Denver, en el mes de Diciembre, de 1875.

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fill the chair of chemistry and natural history in the University. He entered on his duties early in June. He was born in the town of Shelburn, Vermont, September 20, 1816. In early life he encountered difficulties arising from the straightened circumstances of his parents, such as might have kept in obscurity an ordinary mind; but he worked his way through every obstacle to the attainment of a liberal education, and was graduated at Middlebury College, in his native state, in 1839. He entered college, intending to prepare himself for the ministry; but a weakness of the lungs, which soon after appeared, compelled an abandonment of his purpose. Following a taste for physical science which had been developed during his collegiate course, he studied medicine, receiving his degree in 1843. He commenced the practice of his profession in Middlebury with a prospect of more than ordinary success; but his attainments and the general cast of his mind fitted him peculiarly for the work of instruction; and to this he devoted the chief energies of his life.

In obedience to a call from his Alma Mater, in the spring of 1845, he temporarily filled the chair of an absent professor in anatomy, physiology, and botany in that institution. He was also called about the same time to take part as an assistant in the geological survey of Vermont. A year later, he undertook the charge of a female seminary in Middlebury. In these various relations, he acquired a reputation for sound scientific attainments, energy of character, and success in imparting knowledge, which induced the trustees of Beloit College, of Beloit, Wisconsin, to invite him, in 1849, to the professorship of chemistry and natural science, in that institution. He entered upon the duties of his office in the fall of that year.

On his removal to Wisconsin, Prof. Lathrop soon become extensively and favorably known, not only as a college teacher, but as associate editor and publisher of the Wisconsin and Iowa Farmer, and as a devoted and successful laborer in the department of agricultural science. For the last two years of his life, by his connection with that journal, he came into communication with the agriculturists of southern and central Wisconsin, and thus gave them the benefit of both his science and his experience, for the promotion of their interests. He was entirely free from the pride of learning, which often keeps the educated man from intercourse with the working farmer; and his practical good sense fitted him in a peculiar manner to be a useful instructor of that class, through the pages of a journal devoted to their interests. He did not sever his connection with the institu