The Shaksperian plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, the characters to the drawing of Michael Angelo, but the word-painting exceeds the coloring of Titian. Accordingly, in view of Shakspere's diction, I would long ago have said, if I could, what I read in Arthur Helps concerning a perfect style, that "there is a sense of felicity about it, declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel that it will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, nor to any other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely, mellifluously and completely." In the central court of the Neapolitan museum I observed grape-clusters, volutes, moldings, fingers and antique fragments of all sorts wrought in the rarest marble, lying scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and rain, cast down the wrong side up, and seemingly thrown away, as when the stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street. Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like that appar. ent wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can afford to make nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her jewels!" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakspere's prodigality in "Anas eróμeva. His exchequer must have been more exhaustless than the Bank of England, and he threw away more dies for coining words than the British mint ever possessed for coining money. On the whole, in whatever aspect we survey the Bard of Avon I am reminded of the retired Boston merchant who, in his old age, reading Hamlet for the first time was earaptured. When asked how he liked Shakspere, his answer was, "How do I like him? Like is no word for my admiration. The truth is that not twenty men in modern Boston can write anything better than old Shakspere." I say ditto to the Boston man. Not more than forty men in Madison (the present company excepted) can produce plays superior to the old Shaksperian. DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCES. A LIST OF THE CRUSTACEA OF WISCONSIN. With Notes on some New or Little Known Species. BY WILL F. BUNDY, M. D., SAUK CITY. The crustacean fauna of Wisconsin has as yet received so little attention that it is at present impossible to present, with even approximate completeness, a list of the species inhabiting her waters. The various dredgings in Lake Superior under the auspices of the general government, and a dredging expedition off Racine previously reported to this academy by Dr. P. R. Hoy, have furnished almost our whole knowledge of the crustacean fauna of the lakes on our borders, while the interior of the state remains almost entirely unexplored. A species of cambarus (C. virilis) from Sugar river, another (C. propinquus) from Madison, and an amphipod, (Orchestes dentatus), from the latter place, are, I believe, the only crustaceans that have been accredited to the interior of the state till within a very recent period. That our streams and lakes are extremely rich in crustacean life, is abundantly attested by the fact that not a single locality has been explored with any degree of thoroughness without revealing the presence of several species of the higher genera. The species included in this list, with the exception of those found only in the great lakes, were all taken within the comparatively limited area included in the counties of Racine, Jefferson, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Outagamie, Dane, Sauk and Richland. I have received specimens from but a single locality each, in the greater number of these. The following list embraces all the species of the higher orders known to inhabit the waters of the state: ORDER: DECAPODA. Family: Astacido. Cambarus acutus. Girard. C. stygius. Bundy. |