AND MEMORANDA. 131 



surprising, however, to be told that the decaying bricks of all our 

 buildings in London and elsewhere are densely inhabited by special 

 animalculas. This, however, is positively announced by M. Parize, 

 who declares himself to have seen with the microscope, in every 

 portion of crumbling, weather-worn brick-work, minute living 

 -organisms, which are the real destroyers of the surface and even 

 the walls of buildings. The harder the brick the fewer these tiny 

 burrowing things would be ; but wherever the walls are seen to be 

 'weathered' there they are declared to exist, making their in- 

 visible lodgings in the material which would seem so impervious. 

 We do not answer for the accuracy of these observations, but they 

 cannot be called ridiculous when it is remembered that the sea- 

 worm eats through stone and shells; and that even tobacco-leaves 

 .are bored by creatures which feed on them and dwell in them. 

 That these odd beings can get nourishment from a bath-brick or a 

 cornice cannot be imagined ; but, if they really inhabit our walls, 

 as is said, one more proof is given of the ubiquity and wonderful 

 variety of life." — Daily Telegraph. 



" If a leading journal of the great Pacific State be correctly 

 informed, our architectural little friend, the busy bee, is at the 

 present moment in imminent danger of forfeiting, through no fault 

 of its own, the monopoly of making honey with which it was sup- 

 posed to have been exclusively endowed by nature. It will doubt- 

 less continue, as from time immemorial, to gather that delicacy all 

 the day from every opening flower; but it will no longer be the 

 only insect privileged to improve each shining hour in that par- 

 ticular manner. An American naturalist, named McCook, is said 

 to have just discovered, somewhere in Mexico, a species of ant in 

 every respect qualified to compete with the apian industrial upon 

 whom we have hitherto been dependent for our honey supply. 

 Our Western contemporary states that the Philadelphian Academy 

 of Sciences has already published a full description of the ant in 

 question, christened by its discoverer ' Melliger,' representing it 

 as large of its kind, and provided with an abdominal pouch which, 

 when filled with honey, swells to the size of a tiny grape. The 

 Mexicans, it would appear, collect this honey for consumption and 

 sale by squeezing its ingenious little fabricators to death in presses, 

 many thousands at a time. According to McCook, nine hundred 

 and sixty ' Melligers ' yield exactly one pound of honey, fully 

 equalling in fragrance and lusciousness the product of Dr. Watts' 

 familiar exemplar of the minor virtues." 



An interesting account of the Honey-making Ants will be found 

 in " Ants and their Ways." 



