THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 55 



and in one case the channels ended in a spherical chamber, 

 filled with the seeds of a grass which he had seen the ants in 

 the act of transporting. Outside the channels there was 

 generally a heap of the husks of the various seeds, and 

 sometimes one of these heaps would fill a quart measure. 

 These husks had had their farinaceous contents extracted 

 through a hole on one side. He purposely strewed near the 

 nests large quantities of millet and hemp-seeds. After the 

 lapse of a fortnight many of these seeds, previously conveyed 

 into the nests, had been brought out again, they having 

 evidently commenced to germinate, and he then found that 

 the radicle was gnawed off from each seed, so as to prevent 

 further growth, and, this being effected, the seeds were 

 carried back again. The cotyledons of germinated seeds 

 were removed from the nests. The oily seeds of hemp 

 appeared to be greatly in request. He had not found any 

 true Myrmecophilous beetles in the nests, but a specimen of 

 a Choleva was observed, and Aleochara nitida swarmed 

 about the entrance of the galleries. There were, however, 

 numerous immature examples of a Lepisma, and a Coleop- 

 terous larva, to which the ants paid great attention, an 

 agitated group of workers seizing one of them when placed 

 near them, removing it to a place where there was loose 

 friable earth, into which it immediately began to burrow. 

 The only recent account of the storing of grain by ants that 

 Mr. Moggridge was able to find was in the ' Encyclopaedia 

 Popolare,' Torino, 1845, in which the explanation given was 

 that the ants used the seeds for building materials. He 

 promised to make further observations on these grain-storing 

 species, and to communicate the results to the Society. 



Death of Professor Ratzehurg. — Professor J. T. C. Ratze- 

 burg died at Berlin on the 24th of October last, in his 

 seventy-first year. He occupied himself especially with the 

 metamorphoses and the ravages of insects injinnous to forests, 

 and his great work 'Die Forstinsekten' is a lasting proof of 

 his industry and keen powers of observation. He also 

 published a popular edition of this work, as well as the 

 portion relating to the parasitic Hymeuoptera (which play so 



