Hymenopterous Insects. 269 



removing the dead and partly dried body of an earthworm of 

 moderate size. In the kitchen of a house known to me, in 

 Kensington Gravel Pits, ants of a very minute species were 

 very abundant during the summer of 1833: they would par- 

 take of the meat, and of the butter, &c., when they could get 

 to it. — J. Z). 



A Mode of destroying Ants in gardens is asked for by G. T., 

 in lE,nt. Mag., i. 521. These modes for destroying them, or 

 attracting them to the end of their being destroyed, have been 

 published in the Gard. Mag. v., 730., vii. 315.: — Baits: the 

 refuse part of melons, slices of raw turnip rubbed over with 

 honey, recently cooked bones of roast or boiled meat or fish. 

 Poisons : a well-compounded mixture of equal parts of loaf 

 sugar, oxide of arsenic, and well-pulverised white bread, 

 strewed, as occasion may require, both as to time and quan- 

 tity, in the haunts of the ants. The mixture to be kept in a 

 bottle dry for use. Ants, however, it seems, by the remarks 

 under Nematus ribesii, in p. 265., may be useful in a garden. 

 — J.D. 



Remarks and Facts on Ants. — My children have just finished 

 reading a few interesting anecdotes respecting the natural 

 history of the ant. I have read in books, and heard from the 

 lips of learned teachers, many such anecdotes, chiefly taken 

 from the statements of Solomon, that " she (the ant) pro- 

 videth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the 

 harvest." The gentleman who wrote the book which my 

 children have been reading [We presume, a paper in the 

 Spectator; as we remember a tantamount paper in that work.] 

 says that he had two commonwealths of ants in a flower-box, 

 in his window, two stories high, which he thought of planting 

 tulips in : but, seeing the ants, he was sorry to disturb them ; 

 and was more amused with the ants than he could have been 

 with the tulips. This may be true : every one to his taste. 

 I am no great admirer of tulips ; but I detest a nest of ants. 

 However, then follow the anecdotes, many of which are truly- 

 marvellous. He says that wheat is their favourite food ; but 

 that they are also fond of rye and oats- He observed one 

 ant bring in its paws [? jaws] a full-sized grain of wheat up to 

 the window from the ground ; but, being so tired, it dropped 

 it from top to bottom. The ant went down the wall a second 

 time, and found its grain of wheat, and brought it back up 

 the wall ; but, just as it was getting it into the box, it dropped 

 a second time. The ant again descended the wall, and again 

 found its favourite grain; but, being then so very much 

 fatigued, another ant assisted it to scale the wall, and deposit 

 the precious grain in their storehouse ! If the above account 



