of cattle, unless it be for milk only, is perhaps inferior to most kinds of cattle reared in this island: nor is it at all clear to me, that even in respect to milk there are not other breeds that equal if not exceed them. The quantity of milk that one of those cows yields in a day, for a short time after calving, while on the top of the grafs, is indeed very large. In these circumstances I have known a single cow yield eight gallons (English) of milk a day: but it must be recollected that these are among the largest sized cattle reared in this island, and that they continue only for a month or two after calving to yield that very large quantity of milk, after which time it usually diminishes very much. The little cow I mentioned above that belonged to myself, though she was not above half the size of one of those, yielded sometimes about seven gallons of milk soon after calving, and when properly fed would perhaps have yielded about five gallons a day on an average for eleven months in the year (for she would have given milk at all times till the day of her calving, if she had been milked till then). This is perhaps more milk than any Holdernefs cow has been known to yield during the whole year, though there is not a doubt that half the quantity of food would have sustained her. Were I here to state the quantity of butter that milk would have yielded, compared to what the same quantity of some of the thinnest Holdernefs milk would yield, the difference would be still more striking; but, as I am far from thinking thinnefs of milk has been proved to be an invariable property of this breed, I decline to make this point of the parallel.

The Suffolk cows are deemed good milkers. The Lancashire or long-horned breed are thought to be only indifferent in this respect. The Devonshire cattle, though beautiful and valuable in other respects, are not well known as milkers. In short, unless it be the solitary experiment by Mr. Farquharson above quoted, I have not heard of a single attempt having been made in this island to improve the breed of dairy cows: for in the principal dairy counties such kinds only are bought by the farmer to keep up his stock as chance brings to his hand. On this subject there is such a confused train of indistinct ideas afloat in the minds of men, that it will be long before they can be brought in any way to think consistently upon it, or, of course, to make any experiments that tend to profit; though I can fairly say, from the facts that have fallen under my own view, that there is no branch of rural economy that is susceptible of greater improvements than that of breeding cattle for the purposes of the dairy.

If we are, in this respect, unacquainted with the qualities of the cattle that are fed in our own stalls, it will not be expected that we can know any thing with . precision respecting those of distant countries. There seems, however, good reason to suspect that none of the varieties of the bos tribe yield nearly so much milk as the common kind that is generally domesticated in Europe. The buffalo, which is sometimes tamed in the higher parts of Germany, is said to yield very little milk in proportion to its size. In the East Indies the cows, which are generally of the Bison class, from the best information I can get, are found in ge

neral to yield not more than an English quart a day: nor have I met with any fact that seems to give an advantageous idea of the milking quality of any variety of the cow kind that is not found in Europe. The Yak, it would seem, is more valued for its milk in India than any other known breed; but here, as usual, we are in the region of uncertainty only, and accurate experiments are wanting to ascertain the necefsary facts.

As it may afford an agreeable diversity to the readers, however, I shall introduce in the next number some practical remarks on the management of the dairy, being the result of experience.

[To be continued.]

my...

The Arnée, the largest breed of cattle yet known,

165870

On the transformations, &c. of Insects.
[Continued from page 36.]

Of the Formica-Leo, or Lion Ant.

THE diversities of nature are infinite; and in no particular are they more so, than in what respects the habitudes and modes of living of the larvæ of insects. In our last, we had occasion to bring under review an aquatic insect, which, though it inhabits the water for the greatest part of its life, differs from fishes in general, in being in no respect carnivorous. It belongs rather to a clafs of animals that has been so little observed, as not to have obtained a distinctive name, but which might perhaps be called terrivorous. The insect that at present attracts our notice, though like the Ephemera it is in its perfect state a fly with four wings, produces a progeny which, in its larva state, seeks shelter in the earth, not for the sake of consuming that substance as food, but for employing it as a trap, by a device of a most singular kind peculiarly its own, for ensnaring other insects, and for concealing itself from their view until they shall be brought within its grasp, when it seizes them with an unrelenting gripe, and devours them with a voracious avidity.

This insect, on account of the peculiarity of its manners and the singularity of its form, not lefs than its longevity in that form (about two years), has attracted much more notice in its larva than in its pupa state; so that the animal, like the silk-worm, still retains the name which it had obtained in that state perhaps

before it was known that it ever afsumed a winged form; for while it is an inhabitant of the earth, as its traps are more peculiarly calculated for ensnaring ants than any other game, and as it seizes them with a firmness of grasp similar to that of the lion with its prey, from whence they scarcely ever escape, it has been called Formica-Leo, but in English lion ant, which is as much as to say, the lion, or devourer of ants; but its manners are in other respects so little analogous to that of the lion, that some naturalists have objected to the name: that, however, is of little consequence.

The form of this insect is singular, and peculiarly adapted to the mode of life that nature intended it should follow. Its abdomen is very large, resembling in a small degree that of some kinds of spiders; but it is divided into eleven rings, each of which supports a series of tubercles, from which proceed a few short stiff hairs, that appear very conspicuous when examined by a lens. Its head is flat, and of a sort of triangular form. From the two upper angles are protruded a pair of moveable organs of singular power, which in certain points bear a strong resemblance to the horns of quadrupeds. They They are thickest at the base, and taper toward the point where they bend inwards. The animal has a power to move these members so as to close them like a forceps, and even to make the points cross each other at pleasure. These organs answer the purpose, not only of seizing its prey, as do the paws of the lion, but they also serve as an organ for conveying food to the stomach, like the proboscis of the gnat and several other insects; for this creature has no mouth properly so called, nor