Architecture in the Animal Kingdom. 127 



the light in a highly scientific publication, in the Trans- 

 actions of the Linnean Society of London (1861). 

 We are scarcely able to understand, why George 

 Romanes, who incorporated the Australian burial 

 anecdote in his work "Animal Intelligence," did not 

 even in the sixth edition (1895) entertain any doubts 

 about it, but continued to regard it as sufficiently 

 authentic. Something, to be sure, was true in the 

 whole affair; but this "something" is confined to the 

 fact that ants remove their dead from their nests to a 

 certain place where they collect all their rubbish, and 

 sometimes cover it with earth. These places, how- 

 ever, would no doubt be far more correctly called 

 "dumping grounds" than graveyards ; for they are 

 nothing but places where they deposit everything 

 that displeases their instinct of cleanliness. 1 These 

 phenomena have nothing to do with "Chinese venera- 

 tion for the dead," 2 as can be easily ascertained in 

 artificial observation nests. In these nests the dryest 

 spots farthest away from the interior of the main nest 

 are used for collecting the refuse. In my large obser- 

 vation nest of F. sanguined the place bearing the namQ 

 "refuse nest" is the one in which the corpses of dead 

 ants, remnants of dead flies, wings of dismembered 

 dragon-flies, empty cocoons of ants and other rubbish 

 is finally stored, just because the ants wish to get rid 



J ) Forel, "Ameise und Mensch oder Automatismus und Vernunft." 

 2 ) W. Marshall, in his "Leben und Treiben der Ameisen" (p. 26), 

 says, "the American forms seemed (as regards the treatment of their 

 dead) to be more affectionate than those of the old world." We should like 

 to know why? At least nothing of the kind follows from the observa- 

 tions, which he mentions, of McCook. See "Die Honigameise des 

 Goettergartens" ("Stimmen aus Maria-Laach," XXVII, 1884, 282), 

 where we have dwelt more at length on the "affection" of the Ameri- 

 can honey-ants. 



