ANT COMMUNITIES 



and therefore well adapted to the varied roles for which 

 its peculiar size and plastic nature also fit it. 



To the necessity for finding food combined with mi- 

 nute size we probably owe the origin of some remark- 

 able associations formed by sundry species. Some of 

 these which live in or near the nests of other species and 

 prey on their larva? and pupa?, or surreptitiously consume 

 certain substances in the nests of their hosts, have been 

 grouped together under the name of "Cleptobiotic" or 

 thieving ants. [\V. 1, p. 528-9.] As a distinctive name 

 the title is apt enough, but the lay reader may be ad- 

 vised that it is not meant to imply moral delinquency, 

 or that thief-ants are offenders above all others; for 

 the act of seizing food wherever it is found and can be 

 taken is common and natural to all ants. 



Cleptobiotic ants are small in size and subterranean in 

 habit, and are persistent intruders upon the communes 

 of other and larger species. Their minuteness is their 

 security, and doubtless the source of their peculiar par- 

 asitic habit; for it enables them to steal into the gal- 

 leries and rooms of greater neighbors, and plunder their 



Fig. 89 SOLENOPSIS FUGAX 



(After Wasmann) 



a Male, b Dealated female, c Worker. (All magnified) 



254 



