_Funereal Habits._--In another connection it has already been stated that Sir John Lubbock found his ants to be very careful in disposing of the dead bodies of their comrades. This habit seems to be pretty general among many species of ants, and is no doubt due to sanitary requirements, thus becoming developed as a beneficial instinct by natural selection. The funereal habits of the agricultural ant are thus related by MacCook:[32]-- There is nothing which is apt to awaken deeper interest in the life-history of ants than what may properly be called their funereal habits. All species whose manners I have closely observed are quite alike in their mode of caring for their own dead, and for the dry carcasses of aliens. The former they appear to treat with some degree of reverence, at least to the extent of giving them a sort of sepulture without feeding upon them. The latter, after having exhausted the juices of the body, they usually deposit together in some spot removed from the nest. I did not see any of the 'cemeteries' of the agricultural ant upon the field, nor, indeed, observe any of their behaviour towards the dead, but my artificial nests gave me some insight of this. In the first colony had been placed eight agriculturals of another nest, which were literally cut to pieces. Very soon after the ants were comfortably established in their new home, a number of them laid hold upon these _disjecta membra_, and began carrying them back and forth around the formicarium. The next day this continued, and several of their own number who had died were being treated in like manner. Back and forth, up and down, into every corner of the box the bearers wandered, the very embodiment of restlessness. For four days this conduct continued without any intermission. No sooner would a body or fragment thereof be dropped by one bearer than another would take it up and begin the restless circuit. The difficulty, I easily understood, was that there was no point to be found far enough removed from the living-rooms of the insects in which to inter these dead. Their desire to have their dead buried out of their sight was strong enough to keep them on this ceaseless round, apparently under the continuous influence of the hope that something might turn up to give them a more satisfactory burial-ground. It does not appear greatly to the credit of their wisdom that they were so long discovering that they were limited to a space beyond their power to enlarge. When, however, this fact was finally recognised they gave their habit its utmost bent, and began to deposit the carcasses in the extreme corner of the flat, as distant as possible from the galleries on the terrace above.