120 ON AN UNRECORDED HABIT OF WHITE ANTS ; 
mummy, and a question arises as to the circumstances which 
determined the death, or at least as to the time when it took 
place;” and, after referring to the phenomena which attend the 
invasion of dead bodies by insects, he adds that he feels authorised 
to state ‘“‘medical jurisprudence can, in some cases, call in the aid 
of entomology with as much certainty of success as it does human 
physiology and pathology in others, with the end of furnishing 
those tribunals, which deal with questions pertaining to criminal 
proceedure, with the principles which should guide their application 
of the law.”— Zrans. 
M. Mégnin then relates two occasions on which his opinion 
had been requested by Professor Brouardel, who nad suggested to 
him the value of the investigations of an entomologist in such 
cases in eliciting facts not otherwise accessible. He found, in 
one instance, that a boy had met with his death two years prior to 
the date at which he conducted his inquiry, and that this boy also 
had been previously much neglected. And in the second instance 
—that of an infant, that only a year had elapsed since its death— 
a verdict, whose accuracy was subsequently sustained by the con- 
fession of the mother of the child, 
Still more recently, Mariano de la Paz Graells, in the Aezesta of 
the Meal Academia de Ctenctas, 1., xxi.. No. 8, p.p. 458-471; 
Madrid, 1886, and in an article entitled ‘‘Entomologia Judicial,” 
even further enlarges upon the subject, and expresses the opinion 
that the investigations of an entomologist should decide, in an 
approximate manner, the days, months, and even years, which 
have elapsed since a death has occurred. of. ct, p. 462. This 
author then cites a number of instances in corroboration of this 
assertion, in which successful investigations, in cases the subject of 
judicial inquiry, had been conducted by Brouardel in 1882; more 
recently by Descoust, Mégnin, Bergeret, and lastly, by the justly 
celebrated entomologist, 1). Julio Lichtenstein—giving a verbatim 
translation in Spanish of their several reports. 
As, then, such important issues are connected with a proper 
understanding of the nature and life history of the different insects 
which affect the carcase of man, there needs no apology for intro- 
ducing to the notice of the Society a new fact in this connection. 
All the insects referred to, either by M. Mégnin or by Mariano 
de la Paz Graells, or the savants, whose reports are quoted by the 
latter of these authorities, confine their operations to the soft 
tissues of the body and do not attack the skeleton, or only the 
ligamentous and cartilaginous attachments to it, But there are 
