nussars as ensign. In a campaign against the Prussians, rt the commencement of the Seven years' war, in which the Swedes were allied with Russia and Austria against Frederic the Great, he was taken prisoner in Pomerania by the same regiment of Prussian hussars in which he afterwards became so distinguished. The colonel of the regiment, Von Belling, being favourably impressed with his frank and gallant character, persuaded him to join the Prussian army, and contrived to give in exchange for him another Swedish officer. In the service of Frederic he rose from a lieutenant to senior-captain, when his pride being ruffled by the promotion of a person of higher birth than himself to the vacant post of major, and finding no use in remonstrance, he caused a request for leave to resign to be delivered to his royal master-that singular personage, to whom in stoical endurance of hardships and energy of character he was so remarkably similar. The reply of the king was 'Captain Blücher has permission to quit my service, and may go to the devil if he thinks fit. Upon receiving this unexpected incivility he retired to the duchy of Silesia, became a farmer, and by persevering assiduity acquired possession of a considerable estate. He remained thus employed for fifteen years, until the accession, in 1786, of Frederic William II., by whom he was courteously recalled, and again introduced in the rank of major to his old regiment of black hussars, which he commanded with honourable distinction in several campaigns against the French. In 1789 he obtained the Order of Merit; and subse quently in 1793-4, as colonel and major-general, at the battles of Orchies, Luxemburg, Frankenstein, Oppenheim, Kirchweiller, and Edesheim in the palatinate, he acquired reputation as a soldier by his vigilance, promptitude, and astonishing energy. In the name of the king of Prussia he took possession in 1802 of Erfurt and Mühlhausen. In the same year, after the victory gained by the French at Jena, having, with a remnant of 10,000 or 12,000 Prussians, become separated from the rest, he succeeded without disorder in forcing his retreat westward as far as 1.ubeck, and. though harassed by the forces of the marshals Soult, Marat, and Bernadotte, he resisted to the last, and finally accepted a capitulation only on condition that the cause of surrender should in writing be stated to be want of ammunition and provisions. Whilst a prisoner of war he was treated by Napoleon with a courteous politeness, for which the motive could not be misunderstood; but the name of Blücher never appeared among those Prussian officers who consented to serve the emperor in his projects against Russia. Having been exchanged for General Victor, he was sent into Pomerania to assist the Swedes. He was afterwards employed in the war department at Königsberg and Berlin; and when in 1813 his country rose in opposition to France, he was appointed to take the command of a numerous army of Prussians and Russians combined. The order of St. George was bestowed upon him by the Emperor Alexander in acknowledgment of his conduct at the battle of Lützen; at those also of Bautzen and Haynau he was no less conspicuous. In the battle fought August 26th, 1813, on the banks of a small river near Liegnitz in Silesia, called the Katzbach, Blücher first held undivided command; and with 60,000 men, the largest portion but raw militia, defeated the French marshals Macdonald, Ney, Lauriston, and Sebastíani. In consequence of a heavy rain during the four previous days, a great number of muskets were not useable; the infantry were therefore brought hand to hand with the bayonet: a hideous slaughter ensued, and the army of Blucher gained the first great victory of that eventful campaign by a furious attack that precipitated the French by thousands into the flooded river. The general's proclamasion upon this occasion exhibits his characteristic fervour and laconic eloquence:- Silesia is delivered! audaciously the enemy came upon you-brave soldiers! swift as the lightning you rushed upon them your bayonets have plunged them headlong into the Katzbach-you have 18.000 prisoners and all their baggage-offer thanks to the God of Armies.' He now marched with amazing rapidity to the Elbe, passed over by means of pontoons, and pushed on to the important battle of Leipzig, to the victorious results of which his services greatly contributed. With his Russo-Prussian troops he now formed the left wing of the great army of the allies in their pursuit of Napoleon retreating towards France. Having passed over the Rhine at Kaub and Coblentz, he took possession of Nancy in January, 1814. At Brienne he received a fierce attack

from Napoleon: but, though repulsed with great loss, returned to the combat, as usual, on the following day, and succeeded in getting some advantage. The rash and reckless rapidity of his movements at this time having obliged him to make a retreat, and exposed his army to disasters which prudence might have avoided, an alarm began to arise in England about the final result of the contest; when, after various battles lost and won on the way to Paris, he finally entered that metropolis, March 31, 1814; and, but for the intervention of the other commanders, it would, by him, have been made a scene of revengeful retribution. Among his less extravagant demands, he firmly insisted upon the restitution of every picture and work of art which had been plundered from Prussia to adorn the Louvre. As field-marshal and prince of Wahlstadt he accompanied the allied sovereigns to England, where his personal appearance excited intense curiosity. All the most illustrious military orders of Europe having already been conferred upon him, the king of Prussia created for him a new one, with the badge of a cross of iron, in compliment to his invincible courage. The Prince Regent of England gave him his portrait; and the university of Oxford, not to be deficient in proof of admiration, bestowed upon the veteran warrior the academical degree of LL.D. In possession of these honours he retired to his Silesian estate, residing there until the return of Napoleon from Elha in 1815, when again he returned to the great theatre of war, and assured the command of the Prussian army in Belgium. His characteristic over-confidence and precipitancy occasioned his defeat at the battle of Ligny, June 16th. It was at the close of this desperate engagement, in which the fighting continued until ten at night, that his horse was shot dead, and fell upon him, so that he lay in that position unable to move, whilst several regiments of French cuirassiers passed over him in charging his troops. A report of his death was soon in circulation; and Napoleon, who commonly named him le vieux diable (the old devil), made the most of it in cheering the hopes of his soldiers in the struggle at Waterloo on the 18th. But late in the evening of that memorable day, when victory seemed to hang doubtful, Prince Blücher, who on the night of his accident had, owing to the darkness, escaped unhurt, appeared suddenly emerging from the forest of Frichemont at the head of a great portion of his Prussian army. At first Napoleon took it for the French division of Marshal Grouchy arriving from Wavre; that illusion however was quickly dispelled, and a simultaneous panic having seized upon the whole of the French forces and produced the utmost confusion, a general attack was ordered by the Duke of Wellington, which at once terminated in their perfect defeat. Blücher, although his troops had been marching all day, immediately gave orders to pursue the flying enemy; and the moon being bright, a fierce and hot pursuit by sixteen regiments of Prussians was kept up the whole night, until the roads were choked with the dying and the dead. Having arrived with his army at Paris, and assisted in the reinstatement of the Bourbon dynasty, he remained there several months, very frequently attending the tables for rouge et noir. When the Prussians returned to Germany, Blücher, on the anniversary of the battle of Katzbach, paid a visit to Rostock, his native place, where all the inhabitants united to raise a public monument to his fame: those of Berlin presented to him a medal with a representation of the angel Raphael trampling upon a dragon. His health now beginning to decline, he finally retired to his chateau of Kriblowitz in Silesia, where the king of Prussia visited and took leave of him in his latest moments. I know I shall die, said the old general; I am not sorry for it, because I can be no longer of any use. Having requested that he might be buried without any parade, in a neighbouring field by the road side, under three linden trees, he died on the 12th of September, 1819, aged 77. The whole army went into mourn ing for eight days. He had been in the service of Prussia during forty-five years, and at the battle of Waterloo was at the age of 73. In the year 1826 his statue in bronze, twelve feet in height, modelled by the sculptor Rauch, was erected in Berlin. The merit of Blücher lay nearly altogether in his fearless courage and his personal advantages: as a prudent, scientific, general he has no claims at all to distinction. With a piercing eye, a loud and sonorous voice, a bold outline of figure, accoutred and armed as a cossack, and a masterly style of manoeuvring his horse, his presence, as he rode in front of his men, never failed to inspire them with hope of

hydrous carbonate of soda; cover and heat the mixture moderately till it fuses; then gradually throw in small portions of the mixture above described, waiting till the effervescence is over before a fresh portion is added. Keep the mixture at a moderate red heat for an hour. If there be an excess of sulphur it is to be expelled by a moderate heat, and if all parts should not be equally coloured, the finer portions after powdering may be separated by washing with water. Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 37. 409. According to the author of this process, sulphuret of sodium is the colouring principle of the lapis lazuli, and of course of the artificia! as well as the natural ultramarine.

This pigment loses its colour totally by being put into an acid and although there is no perceptible effervescence, a slight smell of sulphuretted hydrogen gas is recognised; the residue is of a dirty white colour; the alkalis do not act upon this colour, nor is it destroyed by exposure to a red heat.

It has hitherto, on account of its high price, been used almost exclusively by artists, both as a water-colour and in oil; but on account of the reduced charge at which it will probably be hereafter obtained, it will doubtless be rendered much more extensively useful.

Cobalt Blue. This was proposed as a substitute for ultramarine before the invention above described had rendered this latter colour easily obtainable at a moderate price. According to Thenard (Traité de Chimie, tome i.) this pigment, the base of which is either a phosphate or arseniate of cobalt, is prepared by adding a solution of phosphate of soda to one of nitrate of cobalt; the precipitated phosphate of cobalt, after due washing, is to be mixed with moist hydrate of alumina, the proportions being one of the phosphate to eight parts of the hydrate; or half the quantity of arseniate of cobalt may be substituted for the phosphate.

These substances are to be thoroughly mixed and then dried in a stove, and when the mass has become brittle it is to be calcined in a covered crucible at a cherry-red heat for half an hour.

This colour is one of great permanence, but is not so fine as the ultramarine, and will hereafter be probably little employed.

Smalt is a blue colour also prepared from cobalt, but is generally used rather to diminish the yellow tint of writing paper and of linen, and to give a bluish colour to starch, than strictly speaking as a pigment; it is merely glass rendered blue by oxide of cobalt, and this when reduced to a very fine powder is commonly called powder-blue. [See COBALT.]

BLUE-BIRD (zoology), the American name for the Motacilla sialis of Linnæus, Sylvia sialis of Wilson, Saxicola siulis of Bonaparte, Ampelis sialis of Nuttall, and Erytheca (sialia) Wilsonii of Swainson.

Wilson, as much confidence in man by associating with him in summer, as the other by his familiarity in winter.' So early as the middle of February, if the weather be open, he usually makes his appearance about his old haunts, the barn, orchard, and fence-posts. Storms and deep snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time; but about the middle of March is again seen accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple-tree, the cradle of some generations of his ancestors. ***When he first begins his amours,' says a curious and correct observer, it is pleasing to behold his courtship, his solicitude to please and to secure the favour of his beloved female. He uses the tenderest expressions, sits close by her, caresses and sings to her his most endearing warblings. When seated together, if he espies an insect delicious to her taste, he takes it up, flies with it to her, spreads his wing over her, and puts it in her mouth.'

The food of the blue-bird consists principally of insects, particularly large beetles and other coleoptera, frequently of spiders, and sometimes of fruits and seeds.

The nest is built in holes in trees and similar situations. The bird is very prolific, for though the eggs, which are of a pale-blue colour, seldom exceed six, and are more frequently five in number, two and sometimes three broods are produced in a season.

Its song is cheerful, continuing with little interruption from March to October, but is most frequently heard in the serene days of the spring.

With regard to its geographical distribution, Catesby says These birds are common in most parts of North America, for I have seen them in Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the Bermuda Islands. Wilson gives the United States, the Bahamas, Mexico, Brazil, and Guiana, as its localities.

About November it takes its departure from the United States. The whole upper part of the bird, which is about seven inches and a half long, is of a rich sky-blue shot with purple. The bill and legs are black. Shafts of the wing and tail, feathers black. Throat, neck, breast, and sides, partially under the wings, reddish chestnut. Wings dusky black at the tips. Belly and vent white. The female is duller in its colours.

It is said to be much infested with tape-worms.

This bird must not be confounded with the Arctic Bluebird (Erythaca Arctica, Swainson, Sialia Arctica, Nuttall), another species of Swainson's subgenus Sialia. The latter has no red or chestnut about it, the colours being ultramarine-blue above, greenish-blue beneath, and whitish on the posterior part of the belly and under tail-coverts. The specimen figured in the Fauna Boreali-Americana was shot at Fort Franklin in July, 1825.

Swainson mentions another species, his Sialia Mexicana, from the Table-land of Mexico.

BLUE-BOTTLE, a pretty wild flower, commonly found in corn-fields. It is the Centaurea cyanus of botanists. BLUE-BREAST (zoology), the English name for the pretty bird, which, as Bechstein observes, may be considered

[Blue-bird.

Like our red-breast, this harbinger of spring to the Americans is known to almost every child, and shews,' says

No. 274.

Bine-breast.]

as the link between the redstart and common wagtail, having strong points of resemblance to both. It is the Gorge-bleue of the French, the Blaukehlein of the Germans, Petto turching of the Italians, the Cyanecula of Brisson, Motacilla Suecica of Linnæus, Sylvia cyanecula of Meyer, the Blue-throated warbler and Sylvia Suecica of Latham. According to Temminck, the blue-breast is found in the same countries which are inhabited by the red-breast, and particularly on the borders of forests, but is more rare in France and Holland than the latter bird. Bonaparte notes it as accidental and very rare in the neighbourhood of Rome, and as only appearing in severe winters. Bechstein says, I often hear it said that the blue breast is a rare bird; that in some parts of Germany 11 appears only every five or even ten years, but I can declare that this opinion arises from a want of observation. Since I have taught my neighbours to be more attentive to the time of their passage, they every year catch as many as they please. If in the first fortnight of April, up to the 20th, cold and snow return, plenty may be found by merely following the streams, rivers, and ponds, especially in the neighbourhood of a wood.'

In England it is very rarely seen.

The food of the blue-breast, according to Temminck, consists of flies, the larvae of insects, and worms. Bechstein says that it also eats elderberries. It is one of those unfortunate birds which is called by some a Beccafico. The nest is said to be built in bushes and in the holes of trees. The eggs, of a greenish-blue, are six in number.

The following is Bechstein's accurate description of the male:Its length is five inches and a half, of which the tail occupies two and a quarter, The beak is sharp and blackish, yellow at the angles; the iris is brown ; the shanks are fourteen lines high, of a reddish-brown, and the toes blackish; the head, the back, and the wing-coverts are ashy-brown, mottled with a darker tint; a reddish-white line passes above the eyes; the cheeks are dark-brown, spotted with rust-red, and edged at the side with deep ashgrey; a brilliant sky-blue covers the throat and half-way down the breast; this is set off by a spot of the most dazzling white, the size of a pea, placed precisely over the larynx, which, enlarging and diminishing successively by the movement of this part when the bird sings, produces the most beautiful effect. The blue passes into a black band, and the latter into a fine orange; the belly is dusky-white, yellowish towards the vent the thighs and sides are reddish; the quill-feathers dark-brown; the tail-feathers red at the base, and half the summit black; the two intermediate ones are entirely dark-brown. Some males have two little white spots on the throat, some even have three, while others have none; these latter are probably very old, for I have observed that, as the bird grows older the blue deepens, and the orange band becomes almost maroon.'

Temminck describes the very old male as having a white streak above the eyes, followed by a black one; no white space on the throat, and some blueish-black between the eye and the beak; the red band of the breast much larger, and that, as well as the origin of the tail-feathers, of a more lively red.

The female resembles the male in the upper parts. On each side of the neck is a blackish longitudinal streak passing on the upper parts of the breast into a large blackish space tinged with ash-colour. On the middle of the neck is a great spot of pure white. Flanks clouded with olive, the rest of the lower parts white. The very old females have the throat sometimes of a very bright blue. This is probably a sign that they have done laying, and are putting on the plumage of the male. Bechstein says that the females, when young, are of a celestial blue tint on the sides of the throat, which deepens with age and forms the two longitudinal lines.

The young, according to Temminek, are brown spotted with white, and have all a large white space upon the throat. Its song, says Bechstein, is very agreeable; it sounds like two voices at once; one deep, resembling the gentle humming of a violin string, the other the soft sound

of a flute.'

BLUE MOUNTAINS, in Australia, may be considered as beginning at Bass's Strait with the rocks of Cape Wilson, and running in a north-eastern direction parallel to the shore as far as Cape Howe. We are not acquainted with the distance of the range from the sea in this part of the country. Opposite Cape Howe the mountain-chain changes

its direction and again extending parallel to the shore rung nearly due north, declining one or two points to the east, as far as the sources of the Morrumbidgee river, between 35° and 30° S. lat. In this tract the distance of the mountains from the sea seems to vary between seventy and eighty miles. To the south of the upper branches of the Morrumbidgee river the principal range of the mountains extends eastward and approaches the sea within forty miles or perhaps less: it then suddenly turns to the north, encloses Lake George, and continues north of it in the same direction under the name of Cullarin Range. At nearly an equal distance from 35° and 34° the chain again turns to the east and approaches the sea within forty or fifty miles. Running at this distance parallel to the shore (that is N.N.E.),it extends as far as 33° and perhaps a little to the north of it, where it again turns northward, and continues in that direction till it has passed the 32nd parallel and attained a distance of about 140 miles from the sea. Here it meets with another extensive chain, the Liverpool Range, which runs east and west and seems to be the southern part of a mountain system which extends over a greater space than the Blue Mountains, in the direction from west to east, and whose continuation northward is not farther known. It is possible that it continues up to Cape York, the north-eastern cape of Australia or. Torres Strait.

The highest part of this mountain-range is the Warragong Mountains, between 36° and 35°, whose peaks being covered with perpetual snow, have received the name of the Australian Alps. But the chain extending from these alps to the Liverpool Range, which is more properly called the Blue Mountains, does not attain a very great elevation. Its average height may be 3000 feet, and though doubtless several of its summits approach 4000 feet, it does not seem that any of them exceed that height. These mountains are difficult to be crossed on account of the steep rocks which crown the upper part of the chain, and which are only broken by narrow and deep ravines. Twenty-five years elapsed after the foundation of the colony of Port Jackson before our countrymen succeeded in passing over these mountains. The Liverpool Range attains a much greater height, its summits rising to 6500 feet above the sea; but the passes can be traversed with greater case.

The country between the Blue Mountains and the sea is partly filled with its lower branches, and partly with sandy plains between them and the sea. In some places the hills come down to the very shores, as at Illawarra and Newcastle; at other places they terminate at a distance of thirty miles and upwards from the sea. On the western side the mountains are less steep, and descend in terraces of considerable extent till they terminate in the low plains which occupy the interior of Australia.

In order to go from the coast to these plains, the mountains of course must be passed. Up to the present time this has been effected at two places only. One of the mountain passes lies a little to the north of the parallel of Sydney, and a carriage-road has been made through it, It begins on the banks of the Nepean River, the principal branch of Hawkesbury River, at Emu Ford, and ascending the steep Lapstone Hill continues rising to Spring-wood, twelve and a half miles distant from Emu Ford. Farther on to Weather-Board Hut, sixteen miles from Spring-wood, the ascent is not considerable. Weather-Board Hut is on Kingsland Table, 2727 feet above he sea. Hence the road passes through the vale of Clwdd, on the eastern side of Mount York, which yale is 2496 feet above the sea; Mount York rises to 3292 feet. From this vale the road skirts the southern declivity of Mount York and leads to Cox's Pass, on the banks of Cox's River, which pass is twenty-one miles distant from Weather-Board Hut, and may be regarded as the western extremity of the mountain pass; the remainder of the road to Bathurst leads over an undulating_plain. Bathurst is 1970 feet above the sea, according to Oxley. This portion of the mountains is formed of sandstone, which extends to Mount York and even to Cox's River, where it is succeeded by granite, which afterwards at Molong, to the N.W, of Bathurst, gives way to a limestone formation with numerous caves, and at the junction of the Bell River with the Macquarie is superseded by freestone. But as the country falls rapidly from that point, the free-stone formation soon disappears and is succeeded by the flat country.

The second mountain pass lies farther to the south, near the 35th parallel, beginning at the point where the Wolondilly River turns to the north. It ascends along the courto