194 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
for they show us, by a series of drawings conducted as alone an artist and 
naturalist combined could achieve, the whole history of the remarkable group 
of insects and arachnids which the author has been engaged in the study 
of. Indeed some of the coloured plates representing the residence, &c., of the 
trap-door spider are veritable works of art of a very high character, Plate 
XII. being especially remarkable in this respect. This book is peculiarly 
valuable, because it tends to set at rest a considerable difference of opinion 
in regard to the so-called harvesting power of ants. Our readers may not 
be aware that for a very long time it has been believed in this country 
that the well-known aphorisms about the ant were simple absurdities j that 
it provided for the future no better than any other animal and that the 
so-called observations in proof of its habits were valueless, because the 
observers had mistaken for food the larvae of the ants which they carried 
in their mouths. Indeed this idea has been set forth even by Kirby and 
Spence, who are the best and most popular authors. They say, When 
we find the writers of all nations and ages unite in affirming that, having 
deprived it of the power of vegetating, ants store up grain in their nests, 
we feel disposed to give larger credit to their assertion. Writers in general 
have taken this for granted. But when observers of nature began to ex- 
amine the manners and economy of these creatures more narrowly, it was 
found, at least with respect to the European species of ants, that 710 such 
hoards of gi'ain were made hy them ; and in fact that they had no magazines 
in their nests in which provisioiis of any kind loere stored up." Now, on the 
contrary, Mr. Moggridge has proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that 
European ants are unquestionably of the character attributed to them for so 
many centuries, and that they do regularly lay up a store of seeds of different 
kinds. And he even thinks that this is carried out to such an extent that it 
may be followed by certain injurious results. The tale which the author tells 
of his various days’ researches is full of interest, and shows how much may 
be learned in any department provided there be not wanted patience and in- 
dustry. One of the plates in illustration of this part of the volume gives a 
good sketch of a nest which was made by the ants in the substance of a soft 
fine-grained sandstone to a depth of twenty-three inches. In this case he 
found the inner surface of the excavation of a different colour and appear- 
ance from the outer, and he supposes this is due to some cementing process 
adopted by the ants themselves. His observations on the habits of the ants 
are full of interest and importance. 
In dealing with the trap-door spiders the author is as comprehensive in 
detail as in his account of the ants. He commences with the first account of 
those singular animals, which he thinks was an English one, being that by 
Patrick Browne in the “ Civil and Natural History of Jamaica,” a book 
published in 1756. Mr. Moggridge then proceeds to give a very full account, 
illustrated by the marvellous drawings of which we have spoken, of the 
different varieties of trap-door spiders which he has observed, and details 
many singularly curious facts in the Natural History of these animals, and 
of the wonderful nests and trap-door openings. It seems to us that he has 
really hit upon the exact object of the second tube, which is connected with 
the first. We think with him that its object is to protect the inhabitant in 
the event of any intrusion into its abode, and the way in which this is done 
