Her RICK, Instinctive Traits of Animals. 133 



ical data respecting the syrinx and otlier vocal organs of birds 

 are desirable but will not take the place of critical musical train- 

 ing and familiarity with the modern science of phonetics. 



Among the recent additions to the data of entomological 

 psychology none are more interesting than the notes published 

 by P. H. Dudley in the Transactions of the New York Academy 

 of Sciences for 1889. The observations reported were made in 

 Aspinwall, U. S. Colombia, by Mr. J. Beaumont, and are ap- 

 parently trustworthy. The immediate occasion for the study is 

 found in the extensive ravages of the Termites upon the prop- 

 erty of the Panama railroad. Almost all kinds of wood used 

 in the construction of cars, furniture and building being ruined 

 by the burrows of these insects which build their nests upon the 

 stem or branches of the trees and extend their galleries several 

 hundred feet in search of food supplies. When these galleries 

 are broken, a number of soldier or nasuti ants appear and ar- 

 range themselves in defensive order about the breech, while the 

 workers which labor under the direction of the former repair the 

 gallery. The workers appear with a bit of earth which they 

 press upon the injured edge and then turning exude a drop of 

 adhesive secretion upon the grain. Working from both sides 

 the wall is soon joined in the middle. Should it happen that 

 the broken edges have dried in the sun the insect first expresses 

 the fluid on the margin then places his brick and covers it with 

 his secretion as before. After a gallery had been broken a small 

 black ant was pinned in the breech. This caused considerable 

 excitement. " The nasuti soldiers approached it very cautious- 

 ly with their feelers and seemed afraid of it. In a few moments 

 a worker came with prepared glue, barely touched it, then 

 turned round and dropped a speck of glue, then another, and 

 so on until six had done so ; then some grains of sand were 

 brought and placed on the ant, which was now securely glued 

 down." Soon the work on the gallery was resumed and the 

 prisoner immured in his cell of sand and glue left to his fate, 

 while the broken ends were connected by a curved portion so 

 constructed as to altogether avoid the obstacle. 



An interesting description of a battle between different 

 species is given. The soldiers seem to direct the workers and 

 urge them to the fray. They do not appear to fight or work. 



