. 866 ZOOLOGY. 
canus. What is known of it is still imperfect, and a prolonged 
study would elucidate many interesting facts. ; it 
I first saw this animal last summer in Santa Fé, but it was not 
till late in the fall that I had occasion to examine its habitation. 
A structure like a crater about one inch in diameter indicates 
where they live underground; they make no hills like other ants. 
A narrow canal of the diameter of a quill leads several feet deep, 
it is variously contorted and sometimes widened out toa chamber; 
in such chambers or cavities are seen stored up five, six and more 4 
honey-ants serving as a larder for the others that’ are not honey 
producing, the latter performing the other household duties; they 
are very small and of a yellow color. 
The opinion that the honey is discharged into receptacles is 
entirely erroneous ; the only receptacle is their own abdomen swol- 
len up to the size of a pea, clear, transparent ; the intestines even 
being recognized as a narrow canal winding through the rounded — 
and puffed-up abdomen. The strain on the membrane is such as 
almost to cause it to burst. Many do burst, for on digging up the 
habitation very carefully, one can often notice specks of the soil 
entirely saturated with liquid honey, and near by the collapsed 
ant. In many cases the rupture produces death, and the non- 
producing ants are seen around such places enjoying the sweet 
liquor. 
The honey has an agreeable taste, slightly acid in summer from 
a trace of formic acid, but perfectly neutral in autumn and winter; 
it contains a little more water than the honey of bees, and has there- i 
fore somewhat greater limpidity. The Mexicans press the an- 
mals, and use the gathered honey at their meals; others prepare 
by fermentation an alcoholic liquor from it. 
It would be worth while for beekeepers to try to introduce them 
into some kind of bee-hive fitted with a suitable dry soil and the 
proper food at hand for them. : 
_ The average weight of a non-producing ant is two milligrammesy 
that of a full honey-ant two hundred and forty milligrammes, a con- 
trast simply immense.— Dr. Oscar Loew, Chemist and Mineral- 
ogist to Lt. Wheeler’s Exploring Expédition. 
5 * 
I E (Ne Teese 
a 8 CPt 
Spizeria Brewen (?) 1x Massacuuserrs.—M. W. Stone brought i 
me a g sparrow shot December 15, 1873, in Watertown, Mat 
It was in company with S. monticola, I could not identify it W! 
