Accounts given of the depredations of the coccids on the orange trees of Florida induce me to publish a brief account of the employment by the Chinese of ants as insecticides, In many parts of the province of Canton, where, says a Chinese writer. cereals cannot be profitably cultivated, the land is devoted may be to the cultivation of orange trees, which being subject to devastation from' worms require to be protected in a peculiar manner, that is, by importing ants from neighbouring hills for the destruction of the dreaded parasite. The orangeries themselves supply ants which prey upon the enemy of the orange, but not in suffi cient numbers; and resort is had to hill-people, who throughout the summer and winter find the nests suspended from branches of bamboo, and various trees. There are two varieties of ants, red and with lard the orifices of these they apply to the entran of nests, when the ants enter the bags and become a marketable commodity at the orangeries. Orange trees are colonized by depositing the ants on-their upper branches, and to enable them to pass from tree to tree all the trees of an orchard are connected by bamboo rods, Is the orange the only plant thus susceptible of protection from parasitic pests Are these th species of ants that are capable of utilization as insecticides? Indubitably not; and certainly entomologists andagriculturists would do well to institute experiments with a view to further discovery in this line of research. Lest, however, the United States Entomological Commission or Societe d'Acclimization of France, should undertake to acclimatize these Cantonese formica I must interpose a word of caution, There is found in the same province, in the part of which Swatow is the port, an ant that is a foo and not a friend of agriculture, It is called the "horse-ant," from its fancied equine nppenrance. Horse-ants are so det tructive that u temple has been erected for the worship and propitiation of the Ant God, the producer and ancestor of ants, During the fifth month of every the ants assemble to pay court to i hich is the when farming people present to the Ant God, praying insect may be mi species or Kurope would be calamitous: make due acknowledgement of specie of ants that may be forwarded to from Canton and of information respecting the orange insect and specimens.* Here but as Sir John Lubbock has recently ight conclude this communication, ded so mulch to our knowledge of ants people in many lauds have boce curious to study further the habits of remarkable insect. 1 append therefore few rome which will show that British legislator might find much in China to reward painstaking research.
What Pliny heard respecting a gigantic ant in India, the size of an Egyptian wolf, reached Chinasomewhat exaggerated; while an Kneyclopcedia states that red ante are found in the western deserts as big as elephants and that they kill people! What, however, Chinese writers state con cerning the ants of their own country is not incredible. Before they acquire the art of writing these observant people had noted the most characteristic feature of ants—their orderly submission to authority; therefore, when writing began, they devised a character expressive of this trait of the formics, composed of "insect," and, for the phonetic element enables the heart to rule it self dignity and respect, wha just per se;" because, says lexicography, the ants have princes and ministers, implying intelligent administration and obedience. A further evidence is furnished of their Fogard for equity in their uniting to inflict Slow waiting the above I have met with in the Botanical Bueyelo f Hsu Christian statesman Grange coiture he simply directs the Sai on vote wah adds wil will Grive away the ange dives the pac of worms that injure that frat,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.