Recent Literature. [October, 



: of the estab- 

 lishment of the Commonwealth by Penn two hundred years ago. 

 The competitors must be natives or residents of Pennsylvania, and 

 the sums awarded are £$oo to £ IO oo. The prizes will be mostly 

 presented to the association by private persons, and will bear 

 their names. A number of them have been subscribed. Such 

 prizes, numerous in Europe, are rare here, and are a most effective 

 method of stii :r forms of intellectual effort. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



Lubbock's Ants, Bees and Wasps. 1 — This volume is a reprint, 

 with some omission of details, of Sir John Lubbock's papers 

 which were read before the Linnaean Society of London. The 

 volume is mainly devoted to ants, with a few pages referring to 

 bees and wasps. The book is an important contribution to ani- 

 mal psychology, and is almost entirely a fresh record of facts ob- 

 served by the author, who only refers to the observations of 

 other naturalists for the purpose of introducing his own. Lub- 

 bock is a patient and most impartial observer, and is reticent as 

 to ultimate questions, his method being purely inductive. How- 

 ever, at the outset Sir John feels disposed to place the ants next 

 to man in intelligence, a position which may be disputed, as 

 purely reasoning processes arc perhaps at least as frequently ob- 

 served in the mammals and birds, particularly the domesticated 

 kinds, as in ants or bees. 



We will now rapidly note the original discoveries of our 

 author, such as prove to be additions to our stock of knowledge 

 of insect mental traits. Lubbock is the first to show that in ants 

 [Mynnica rvginodis), the queens have the instinct of bringing up 

 larvae and the power of founding communities ; and not queens 

 only, but, as has been shown by Denny, Lespes, Dewitz, and 

 proved by Forel, the workers will 1 iv eggs which produce males. 

 Lubbock has iui iei >roved that t'l workei eg s only produce 

 males. While it lias formerly been supposed that ants live but 

 one year, Lubbock kept two queens over seven years, and they 

 " are probably more than eight years old." They 'seem in perfect 



"more than six yea. 

 While English an 



-s old." 



for the winter, " tiu. ; 



: do more, for they keep during six month' 



the eggs v, i 



enable them to procure food during the tol 



lowing summer, a c 



ase of prudence unexampled in the anima 



kingdom." 





