76 
Miscellaneous. 
In July last I had a large specimen of Ixodes brought me, taken 
from off a West Indian tortoise. I put it into a pill-box, and having 
left home for a few weeks in the autumn, it was completely forgotten. 
Last month however (November) I happened to open the box, when 
I found the specimen still alive, though languid and shrivelled in 
appearance, accompanied by a strange-looking mass larger than it- 
self, which upon examination proved to be an immense number of 
orange- coloured eggs, resembling a portion of the roe of a fish, but 
more minute in structure. This day I found the parent dead, but 
the eggs I think appear to have increased in size ; whether they are 
likely to produce any young is still to be seen. At the lowest cal- 
culation the animal had lived four months without food. 
My second is an instance either of aflTection or loyalty, I cannot tell 
which. In one of my colonies of ants, a small black one, the queen 
(which is as large as six of the workers at least), died a fortnight 
since from some cause, and lies in one of the passages of the formi- 
cary. But up to this day there has been constantly several work- 
ers attending her remains, occasionally touching her with their an- 
tennae and striking her with their heads (an action common wuth 
this species of ant on meeting each other, which I have not observed 
in any other families). A few days since I poured some water into 
the nest, to see if it would cause the guards to forsake their charge, 
as water generally causes a dispersion when it suddenly enters their 
passages ; but in this instance, although it threw them into some 
confusion, they would not leave the body of their queen. Is this 
aflfection ? I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully, 
Henry Denny. 
Richard Taylor, Esq. 
NOTE ON THE INSECTS OF MADEIRA. 
We make the following e?£tract, by permission of Mr. W. Thom- 
son of King’s College, from' a private letter addressed to him from 
Madeira by our correspondent, T. V. Wollaston, Esq., of Jesus Col- 
lege, Cambridge : — 
“ The country here is most glorious ; mountains rising 7000 feet 
towards the moon, and Funchal at the bottom of them, ‘ looking at 
itself ’ in the sea : the intermediate space filled up with wood and 
rock, and for the last 1000 feet W'ith vineyards arranged on terraces 
and the country-houses of the ‘ aristocracy’ of Funchal. The vege- 
tation is grand to an excess : grapes, oranges, bananas, figs, pump- 
kins, guavas and prickly pears in actual profusion, wuth geraniums, 
cacti, fuchsias, myrtles, cassias and heliotropes spread over the coun- 
try like weeds. The hills are tremendous, involving the necessity 
of keeping a horse, which is sometimes ‘ too large a specimen to be 
convenient’ in entomological researches. Insects are themselves 
scarce here ; so I have been driven to collect all orders alike, and 
muster 230 species, or 970 specimens ; and as I have been here only 
six weeks, this will at least show you that entomology is still che- 
rished, though under adverse circumstances and many local disad- 
