174 Linnean Society. [March 16, 



attempts in different parts of the cellar also failed, the skeletons 

 being frequently destroyed by the crickets and beetles after the ants 

 had abandoned them, until which time no other insect could approach 

 without undergoing the punishment of death. Mr. Daniell then 

 determined to endeavour to establish a colony in a cellar adjoining 

 the oven and parallel with it, in consequence of which proximity 

 the wall gave out a certain degree of warmth when the oven 

 was heated. He first placed the most inviting food in the warmest 

 corner, to which he had fitted a box with holes in it on the side next 

 the wall, large enough to admit the ants, but not the larger insects ; 

 and this failing to attract them, he caught a large number from a 

 piece of liver placed as a trap, and shook them into a box from which 

 they had no means of escape, in which he closed them with abun- 

 dance of food, but after seeking in vain for an outlet they congre- 

 gated in one corner of the box and eventually died. His next ex- 

 pedient was to catch them in great numbers and tufti them loose in 

 the cellar ; and repeating this process for several evenings, he had 

 at length the satisfaction to see a track established extending from 

 a small hole in the wall to the box in which their food was deposited. 

 After some time another track was formed to another corner of the 

 box at right angles with the first ; and these tracks were never 

 abandoned whUe he continued to avail himself of their services, 

 which he did not cease to employ until he had completed by their 

 means upwards of a hundred beautiful skeletons of small quadrupeds 

 and birds, reptiles and fishes, the greater part of which are now in 

 the collection of the British Museum. In the course of these ex- 

 periments he made the following further observations on th'eir habits. 

 They will not touch anything tainted, and prefer animals in the 

 blood to such as have been previously cleaned. The plan which Mr. ' 

 Daniell found to answer best was to take the object quite fresh, to 

 skin it, extract the viscera and cut off as much as possible of the 

 flesh, and then to place it in the box. It is seldom that a skeleton is 

 so entirely cleaned as to require no further preparation ; but the 

 smaller skeletons when taken quite fresh require only a very little 

 subsequent maceration to complete the process, the more delicate 

 and difiicult portions, such as the cranium and vertebrae, being almost 

 always cleaned in preference to the ribs and limbs ; and even those 

 portions of muscle which are not removed by the ants are generally 

 so much detached by them that a slight brushing or two after weU- 

 soaking the object suffices to remove them. One of the great ad- 

 vantages of this mode of preparing small skeletons was found to 

 consist in their perfectly preserving their natural size, the ants seldom 



