Horticulturists have excellent opportunities to observe natural phenomena, denied to many others. Studies in ants are especially interesting. They fight like human beings, seeming to have their generals, captains and privates, with regular military manoeuvres as human beings have. Dr. Henry Mc-Cook, of Philadelphia, has given histories of these creatures, which, only for general observation confirming what he says, might be almost regarded as fictitious. They are following after our investigation in the old world. A recent number of Le Temps records a battle lasting seven days, and reporting that the armies started every day at "exactly four o'clock." We rather doubt whether the ant has progressed further in civilization than to know how to murder and enslave each other, and believe they have not yet invented time-pieces, so as to get exactly the hour, and, on the whole, the French account reads very much as if it were in the main made up from one of Dr. McCook's papers, and in the other part from the imagination.

An opera glass is needed to see an ant battle to the best advantage.