The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1878-10-10
SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

The common house fly lives one day
in the egg state, from five days to week
asa maggot, from five to seven in the
pupa state-.in all, from ten TO fourteen
days in the month of August before the
winged adult period, Most of the flies
which are born in August live for a
month or six weeks, and die at the com
ing of frost either of cold or from the at
tacks Of fungoid plants, A few winter
over and survive until midsummer thus
maintaining the existence of the species.
PADRE FERRARI, the new Director of
the observatory at the Collegio Romano,
announces the discovery of new comet
on August % at eight hours and thirty
minutes. He has registered it as a star
OF the seventh magnitude, under No,
1886 in | alande's catalogue. 1t was
then close TO the constellation of the
Scorpion, but it is rapidly descending.
It's apparent diameter is 81. II is trans
parent, shows no sign of solid nucleus,
and frequently changes color-LondOn
Times.
The first representation of Wagner's
new mythical opera, Percicat is fixed to
take place at Bayreuth, in 1880, provid-
ing the subscriptions solicited suffice to
cover the expenses. No one will be adj
mitted to the series of performances eX-
cept the members of the Patronage AS
ISOLATION who have paid their annual
subscription of los for the three years
of 1877, 70, 80; so that the cost of a
stall for each visitor will be 20 5s., ex-
elusive of travelling expenses and hotel
bills at Bayreuth.
WE may say that the governing prin-
ciple of the music of the last century is
the depletion of the human voice, as
that of Greek sculpture was the depic-
ton Of the human body; and the best
definition of the opera of that period
would be series of pieces beautiful
enough to display to the utmost a per-
fectly trained voice, guided by a cult.
waited and truly artistic mind-a def
milton which may at first seem limited,
as does that Of ancient sculpture, but
perhaps, like it, embraces in reality the
noblest capabilities OF art, since it pro-
duces what is the aim of all true art, the
purely beautiful.
A MORTAL combat between hum
ming-bird and a bumble-bee in a Spring
field (Mass.) hower-garden WAS wit
messed the other morning. The bird was
busily gathering its breakfast of honey
from bunch of lilies, when it dipped
its long bill into blossom which was
pre-empted by a bumble-bec, and the
enraged insect Immediately flew out to
battle. Two or three slight collisions,
hardly occupying as many seconds, fol-
lowed, and then the humming- bird,
with the tiniest note of pain, darted of
and dropped dead in the grass not five
feet away. 1t had evidently been stung
to death.
EVERY one remembers that when
Flaxman told Sir Joshua Reynolds that
he had espoused the amiable and accom-
plished Ann Dolman, the great painter
replied: ooh, then youare ruined for
an artist" Mr.. George Augustus Sala,
touching upon the subject of marriage
and art in his charming Chronique in
the illustrated London Necs, says: I" In
any case, dogmatism on the subject is
dangerous; and Sir Joshua's ill-con-
ditioned remark was possibly due to his
having been Tilted by Angelica Kauh.
man. AS for the expediency of matr
mony in the case of authors, | hold that
novelists and journalists should always
be married men, but that poets should
invariably he single. The true poet
should be more or less unhappy the
more miserable he is the more sweetly
he will sing; but there is no reason why
he should make others wretched."