117 



Miueralogical Ants. 

 " Before coulinuing the account of our journey I must offer a remark connected 

 with an observation I maiie in the desert. When traversing certain parts of the North- 

 American Steppes and Deserts I have frequently observed ant-hills formed exclusively 

 of small stones of the same mineral species, as, for instance, small grains of quartz. 

 In one part of the Colorado Desert the hills of these mineralogical ants consisted of 

 heaps of small shining fragments of crystallized feldspar, chosen by these little animals 

 from the various components of the coarse sand of these parts. The last time I was 

 at El Paro a North- American driver came to me and inquired the value of a small 

 bag of garnets he possessed. On my asking in what place they had been found I 

 heard that these stones — imperfect crystals of red transparent garnets — were the 

 material of which the ants build their hills in the country of the Navago Indians, in 

 New Mexico, and that he knew a place where any quantity of them might be collected. 

 These remarks n)ay perhaps not be uninteresting to the question relating to the gold- 

 seeking ants of Herodotus." — p. 537. 



Mr. Saunders also read descriptions of some new species of the genus Eraleina ; 

 and exhibited the insects to the meeting. 



Part 5 of the current volume of the Society's ' Transactions' was on the table. 



June 4, 1860. 



J. W. Douglas, Esq., President, in the chair. 

 Donations. 



The following donations were announced, and thanks ordered to be presented to 

 the donors: — ' On the Cultivation of Silk at Mussooree, Himalaya Mountains, with 

 Notes on the Treatment of the Silkworm ;' presented by the Author, Capt. Thomas 

 Hutton, F.G.S., Superintendent of Government Silk Plantations. ' On some New 

 Longicornia from the Moluccas;' ' Ou some New Anthribidte ;' by the Author, F. P. 

 Pascoe, Esq. F.L.S., &c. ' The Journal of Entomology,' No. 1 ; by the Proprietors. 

 ' The Zoologist' for June ; by the Editor. ' Proceedings of the Royal Society,' No. 38 ; 

 by the Society. ' Tijdschrift voor Entomologie,' Vol. ii. Part 6, Vol. iii. Parts 1 , 2 and 3 ; 

 by the Entomological Society of the Netherlands. 'A Catalogue of the Lepidopterous 

 Insects iu the Museum of Natural History at the East-India House,' by Thomas 

 Horsfield, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., Keeper of the Museum, and Frederick Moore, 

 Esq., Assistant, Vol. ii. ; by the East India Company. ' The Athenaeum ' for May ; 

 by the Editor. ' The Journal of the Society of Arts ;' by the Editor. ' The Ento- 

 mologist's Weekly Intelligencer,' Nos. 188—191 ; by the Editor. 



Exhibitions. 

 Mr. Stevens exhibited a specimen of Criomorphus caslaneus, found alive in the 

 playground of a school at Blackheath. He observed that the species had been recorded 



