WHEELER. [VOL. II. 



one of these extracted pupae and lick it for hours. Sometimes 

 one ant would take possession of the limp thing and hold it 

 astraddle for a long time. Ultimately these prematurely born 

 ants were either devoured by the workers or fed to the rav- 

 enous larvae. Nevertheless the deft manner with which the 

 cocoon was opened, the pupa extracted, and the empty cocoon 

 at once placed on the kitchen-midden, or rubbish heap, indicated 

 very clearly that this is also the method of procedure with 

 pupae that have reached their full growth. 



A word in conclusion concerning myrmecophiles, for the 

 Ponerinae, like the other subfamilies of ants, are known to 

 harbor arthropod guests in their nests. 1 No guests were 

 taken with Odontomachus and Leptogenys, but some six dif- 

 ferent species were observed in various nests of Pachycondyla 

 Jiarpax. Only one of these had not previously been found in 

 the nests of other species of ants near Austin. This was a 

 small yellow ant, a Solenopsis, allied to the European 5. fngax, 

 and found inhabiting some very minute galleries in the earth 

 between the huge burrows of the Ponerine. It is probably a 

 " Diebsameise," given to myrmecoclepsy like its European 



1 The Ponerine guests enumerated by Wasmann in his Kritisches Verzeich- 

 niss der myrmekophilen und termitophilen Arthropoden, Berlin, 1894, are the 

 following : Typhloponemys hypogaea Rey (staphylinid beetle), with Typhlopone 

 oraniensis Luc., Palestine ; Apocellus (?) sphaericollis Say (staphylinid), with 

 Ponera coarctata Latr., North America ; Rlesotrochus paradoxus Wasm. (staphy- 

 linid), with Typhlomyrmex Rogenhoferi Mayr, Santa Catharina ; Euplectus Si- 

 korae Wasm. (pselaphid beetle), with Ponera Johannae Forel, Madagascar ; 

 Trichonyx sulcicollis Rchbch. (pselaphid), with Ponera coarctata Latr., Europe ; 

 Amauronyx Markeli Aube (pselaphid), with Ponera coarctata Latr., Switzerland ; 

 Araniops amblyoponica Brend. (pselaphid), with Stigmatomma pallipes Hald., 

 Pennsylvania, North Carolina; Tmesiphorus formicinus McL. (pselaphid), with 

 Ectatomma sociale McL., Australia ; LeptotricJnis inquilinus Koelbel (isopod 

 crustacean), with Ponera senarensis Mayr, East Africa. More recently Was- 

 mann has described the following ponerinaphiles : Fauvelia permira Wasm. 

 (staphylinid), with Pachycondyla Fauveli Emery, Bolivia ("Die Ameisen- und Ter- 

 mitengaste von Brasilien," i. Theil, Verhandl. d. k. k. zool. hot. Gesell., Wien, Jahrg. 

 1895, PP- 4>4 I ) > Lomechon Alfaroi Wasm. (silphid), with Pachycondyla aenescens 

 Mayr, Costa Rica (" Ein neues myrmekophiles Silphidengenus aus Costa Rica," 

 Deutsch. Ent. Zeitschr., Heft, ii, 1897) ; Myrmedonia lobopeltina Wasm. (staphy- 

 linid) and Demera Fauveli Wasm. (staphylinid), with Leptogenys {Lobopelta} 

 mtida Sm., Natal (" Zwei neue Lobopelta-Gaste aus Siidafrika," Deutsch. Ent. 

 Zeitschr., Heft, ii, 1899). 



