55 2 



Saw-flies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 



organisms, or make necessary the assumption that ants have a choice-making 

 and generally adaptive and teachable intelligence. Can ants dislocate in 

 time their reactions to stimuli ? Are ants conscious ? 



Curious interrelations of ants with some other animals have already 

 been referred to, as their care of plant-lice 

 (Aphididae) from which they obtain the much- 

 liked honey-dew, and their association with various 

 species of their own general kind in the rela- 

 tions of slave-maker and slave, host and parasite, 

 or host and guest. But still another kind of inti- 

 mate association with other animal species is com- 

 mon in ant-life, namely, that of the occurrence in 

 their nests of many different species of other in- 

 sects (as well as certain mites, spiders, and myri- 

 apods) which force their presence on their ant 

 hosts by cleverness or deception, or are tolerated 

 or even encouraged by the hosts. A few of these 

 arthropods which inhabit ants' nests are true para- 

 sites or predaceous enemies, such as have to be 

 endured by almost all other insect kinds, but the 

 large majority of these so-called myrmecophiles do 

 little or no injury to their ant hosts, while a few 

 even return in some degree the advantages which 

 association. These advantages are (a) ready-made 



FIG. 755. Ecitoxenia brevi- 

 pes, a rove-beetle (Staphy- 

 linidse), which lives in the 

 nests of the robber-ant, 

 Eciton schmittii, in Texas. 

 Note absence of wings and 

 curiously modified shape. 

 (After Brues; natural 

 length one-eighth inch.) 



they receive by the 

 subterranean cavities and lodging-places, defended against most enemies by 

 the fierce and capable owners 



of the nest; (ft) a pleasant v 



and favorable temperature ^p5|>v \i 



maintained despite the frigid 

 ity of the outer atmosphere; 

 (c) stores of vegetable food, 

 as seeds, etc., garnered by 

 the ants, and supplies of ani- 

 mal food, as bits of freshly 

 killed insects, etc., collected by 

 the hosts, as well as the larvae 



FIG. 756. 



FIG. 757. 

 a rove-beetle 



FIG. 756. Termitogaster texana, 



(Staphylinidse), which lives in the nests of the 

 termite, Eutermes cinereus, in Texas. (After 

 Brues; natural length i mm.) 

 and pupae, and even the dead FlG jy J ,Mmgmatis Uattoides, a Phorid fly, which 

 bodies of the ants themselves; lives in the nests of the ant, Formica jusca, in 

 . _. , i T -j r i Denmark. ( After Meinert; thirteen times natural 



(d) the sweetish liquid food size ^ 



readily regurgitated by most 



ant workers in response to certain stimuli, and normally used for feeding 



the queens, males, and occasionally other workers; and finally (e) means 



