MYKAPETKA. 265 



no doubt that if Linnaeus had foreseen the enormous discoveries 

 of later times, he would have carried out fully the plan which 

 he generally followed, and have made all his names descriptive. 



Scientific nomenclature is of necessity quite complicated and 

 crabbed enough without the infusion of a meaningless element, 

 and those authors who introduce such terms are doing their best 

 to deter future students of zoology, and to render it a repulsive 

 rather than a fascinating science. 



When we look at the remarkable nest which is made by the 

 Myrapetra, one cannot but see a vast number of peculiarities 

 which would have furnished an appropriate name, a name which 

 would have stamped upon the mind something of the character 

 of the insect architect. 



This beautiful nest was presented to the Museum in the year 

 1841 by Walter Hawkins, Esq., and a very elaborate memoir 

 by Mr. Adam White is to be found in the " Annals of Natural 

 History," Vol. VII. page 315. 



On looking at the exterior of the nest, our attention is at 

 once excited by the material of which it is made, and the vast 

 number of sharp tubercular projections which stud its surface. 

 In colour it is dark, dull, blackish brown, and its texture some- 

 what resembles very rough papier machd On examining it with 

 a pocket magnifier a matted structure is plainly visible, as if it 

 were made of short vegetable fibres. This appearance accords 

 with the accounts of the natives, who say that it is made from 

 the dung of the capincha, one of the aquatic cavies of tropical 

 America. 



The whole of the exterior is thickly studded with projections, 

 varying in size and shape, but being all of some sharpness at the 

 tip. These projections are comparatively few at the top of the 

 nest, becoming gradually more numerous as they approach the 

 bottom, until at last they are set so thickly that the finger can 

 scarcely be laid between them. 



The object of these projections is not ascertained. The nest 

 always hangs very low, seldom being more than three or four 

 feet from the ground, and some writers say that the office of the 

 sharp projections is to guard the nest from the attacks of the 

 felidte and other honey and grub-loving mammalia. Such may 

 indeed be the true explanation, and indeed it is so obvious that 

 no one could avoid seeing it. But I very much doubt whether 



