Miscellaneous. 89 



growth of fungoid vegetations (not identical with those usually 

 developed after air infection) in plugged bulbs which had been 

 boiled in a can of water. 



If it should be hereafter established that Bacteria and fungoid ve- 

 getations do, under exceptional circumstances, arise abiogenetically, 

 this would not overturn the panspermia theory, it would merely 

 limit the universality of its application. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



New Observations on the Habits of the Ants of the South of France. 



By T. Moggridge. 



A young Englishman, Mr. Traherne Moggridge, having been com- 

 pelled for several years, on account of his health, to pass the winter 

 at Mentone, has devoted himself with ardour to the study of the 

 natural history of that portion of the shore of the Mediterranean. 

 He published first, in 1871, an illustrated Flora* of the principal ' 

 plants which blossom during the winter, with very interesting infor- 

 mation respecting their mode of vegetation — and next, in 1873, a 

 little work on the habits of the ants and spiders t, which indicates a 

 very remarkable spirit of observation. 



We have thought an abstract of Mr. Moggridge's last memoir 

 would be interesting as showing that a subject which was believed 

 to have been long since exhausted, resumed by an intelligent and 

 patient naturalist, may still reveal much that is new and curious. 

 This task has, moreover, been singularly facilitated by the author 

 himself, who has not only most obligingly given us all the informa- 

 tion that could be desired upon the places where his observations 

 were made, but communicated several facts which were not known 

 to him at the time of the publication of his work, for which we beg 

 him to accept our best thanks. 



[The following is the first of the two sections into which the 

 abstract is divided — that, namely, on the ants.] 



In 1869 Mr. Bentham, President of the Linnean Society of Lon- 

 don, called the attention of naturalists to the paucity of knowledge 

 possessed on the origin of certain plants which appear suddenly in 

 localities where they had been previously unknown, after works 

 necessitating the conveyance of earth. This observation suggested 

 to Mr. Moggridge the idea that the ants which he had seen at Men- 

 tone carrying seeds might very probably be an indirect cause of that 

 dissemination. On communicating this opinion to some naturalists, 

 he was much surprised to learn that it was unhesitatingly regarded 

 as a fact by Messrs. Huber, Gould, Kirby, Smith, and recently by 



* Contributions to the Flora of Meutone, and to a Winter Flora of the 

 Riviera, including the coast from Marseilles to Genoa. 1 vol. 8vo. 

 London : L. Reeve & Co. 



t Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders — Notes and Observations 

 on their Habits and Dwellings. 1 vol. with plates. 



