1879. | Recent Literature. 315 
species, the agricultural ant of Texas, to which the attention of 
naturalists had been drawn by the late Dr. Lincecum, of Texas. 
This ant is preéminent, as the author states, for its admirable 
social organization, its skill as a mason in excavating its vast 
and well ordered system of underground chambers ; its extensive 
` surface operations in clearing out circular court-yards to its nests, 
and road-ways to its foraging grounds; the striking variations in 
its surface architecture from cones to flat disks; its highly devel- 
oped stinging powers, which place it among the most formidable 
of the stinging ants; while it is especially noteworthy from its 
harvesting habits. The results of the energy, skill and patience 
evinced in the study of this ant are most successful. There is an 
honesty of purpose, thoroughness in detail and general accuracy 
of statement, together with fullness of illustration in the cuts and 
the twenty-four lithographic plates, which will give a lasting 
value to the book as a biography of one of the most interesting 
of all animals. 
We wish the author had given us his impressions as to the 
nature of the instinctive and rational acts of the ant, but we have 
here a store-house of generally well observed facts, which will 
afford material for the future student of animal psychology. The 
drawings are mostly by the author, and add greatly to the interest 
and attractiveness of the book. | 
WarTERTON’s WANDERINGS IN SOUTH America.\—This quaint, 
at times somewhat affected narrative, whatever its drawbacks 
when judged by the standard works of scientific travelers, has 
always had a hold upon general readers. It is the journal of an 
English country gentleman possessed with a strong love of nature, 
a decided leaning to ornithology, a genius for taxidermy, and 
withal a patient and generally accurate observer. There are 
Scattered through the volume sketches of animal nature which 
give it permanent value. While Waterton’s adventures with the 
Cayman are credible, despite his contemporary critics, we have 
to thank him for the attractive and truthful pictures of tropical 
scenery and life. His sketches of the ant bear, the armadillo, the 
vampire, the ai or three-toed sloth, of certain birds, of the natives 
among whom he traveled, and his researches on wourali poison 
are all as valuable as they are entertaining. In his description of 
the sloth, Waterton makes a contribution to the subject of pro- 
tective resemblance. “1 observed,” he writes, “when he was 
climbing he never used his arms both together, but’ first one and 
then the other, and so on alternately. There is a singularity in 
,* Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States and the An- 
tilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820 and 1824. With original instructions for the per- 
fect preservation of birds. etc., for cabinets of natural history. By CHARLES WA- 
TERTON, Esq. New edition, edited, with biographical introduction and explanatory 
index, by the Rev, 4 G. Woop. ith one hundred illustrations. - London, Mac- 
millan _& Co., 1878. 8vo, pp. 520. 
