7532 Badiata. 



where they remaiued together for a few minutes, when each company left for their 

 own habitation. The observation of this curious proceeding gave me great pleasure; 

 and I had frequent opportunities afterwards of seeing the insects act much in the same 

 way. If one of the " workers," however (wlio are much smaller than the rest), were 

 killed, it was buried where it fell, and no friends attended the funeral. — Mrs. Lewis 

 Hulton, in ' Proceedinr/s of Linnean Society^ Vol. v. No. 19, p. 217. [I may say that 

 had this communication reached my hands through any ordinary channel I should 

 liare respectfully declined it as a hoax ; but, seeing it has received the imprimatur of 

 those athletes of Science who decide on the propriety of publishing or rejecting the 

 communicatious transmitted to the Linnean Society, I have no choice but to accept it 

 as veracious. I would, however, caution my younger readers from drawing any 

 inferences as to the habits of ants in general, or even of Australian ants in particular, 

 from the remarkable fact here related of an individual nest. — Edward Newman.~\ 



The Wreck of the Medusa. — Fleecy white clouds sail softly across the pale blue 

 sky, and a single skylark sings clear and loud overhead. From the bay on the south 

 side of the Cape I pass to the bay on the noith side. I reach a sandy down, where 

 many flowers remind me of home and " Merrie England." I see Erodium mariti- 

 mum and Linaria vulgaris, but not the " wee modest crimson-tipped flower" we all 

 love so well ; in its place is Dianthus chinensis ; this is everywhere, so is a pretty 

 Campanula; and springing up in dry stony places are the spikes of a white-flowered 

 Sedum, looking just like a pigmy Aloe in a pigmy desert. Grasshoppers leap up 

 around me in prodigious numbers, and among the stunted shrubs slowly stalks the 

 grass-green Mantis. The humming-bird hawk-moth hovers around the spikes of the 

 Sedum, and flitting about are painted lady and clouded yellow butterflies. On turning 

 the stones we find a bronze Chrysomela, an Opalrum and an Akis ; Cyinatia runs 

 rapidly out, and there is generally a dark Lithobius. We come now to the edge of an 

 abrupt, broken, yellow-fronted clifiF, whence issues the harsh, grating song of the 

 Cicada, and where, flying backwards and forwards, are the blue rock-pigeons. We 

 descend the clifl', and before us is a blue bay with blue hills in the distance. Around 

 us are brown, flat-tupped and angular rocks, bristling with black patches of juvenile 

 mussels, and rough with white patches of juvenile barnacles. Jn the little pools 

 crawls Lampania zonalis the ubiquitous, and therein disport lively, big-heade'd gobies 

 and the sly, artful blenny. Here also are seen running about, in a busy, cheerful, bustling 

 manner, the beautiful golden plover, the red-billed oystercateher, the greenshank and the 

 sanderling. We are now on the "lean ribbed " sand, a tawny waste extending right and 

 left for miles. The S])olted teal are feeding at the margin of the water ; but what is that 

 mysterious object rolling and tumbling in the ripple of the tide ? It is an immense 

 Rhizosloma, stranded and helpless, at the mercy of the waves. It is certainly the 

 biggest jelly-fish I ever saw, measuring three feet across the disk. The unfortunate 

 Medusa is not only wrecked, but eaten. Chinamen come down, like Riff" pirates or 

 Cornish wreckers, to the scene of the disaster, and cut oflf huge slices of the firm 

 translucent blubber, and, carefully wrapping them in clothes, carry them away for 

 gastronomic uses. Doubtless their insipid mess of boiled rice is greatly improved 

 thereby at evening " chow-chow." This is the only instance I have known of any of 

 the AcalephiE being used as food. — A. Adams ,• Caye Vamitlart, Gulf of Lian-luug. 



