LITERATURE FOR 1916 ON ANTS AND MYRMECOPHILS 425 



bratus, L. fuliginosus and others) have a body secretion which 

 renders them attractive to the myrmecophils and to other species 

 of ants. 



Donisthorpe (7) does not agree with Crawley in believing that 

 the claviger beetles are attracted more strongly by the parasitic 

 queens than by the queen of their normal host ; he thinks rather, 

 that they cling without preference to the gaster of the queen of 

 any of the species with which they are associated. 



Ants and Other Insects. — The relations of ants to other insects, 

 that are not, strictly speaking, myrmecophils, furnishes a wide 

 field for investigation. The literature for 1916 contains many 

 new data bearing on this aspect of ant behavior. Theobald 

 (18) describes a new genus of aphids taken by Crawley in the 

 nests of various species of Lasius. Smith (14) records the 

 following species as attending aphids and other insects in South 

 Carolina. Iridomyrmex pruinosus he found attending the " green 

 bugs," Toxoptera graminum; this aphis was also attended by the 

 ant Dorymyrmex pyr amicus. Prenolepis imparts attends the black 

 elder aphis, Aphis sambucifolia, and also the cottony cushion 

 scale, Icerya purchasi. Cremasto gaster lineolata and Prenolepis 

 impari attend the scale insect on the pine (Toumeyella pini). 



An interesting piece of behavior upon the part of a tiger beetle 

 and an ant is recorded by McAtee (11). This author saw the 

 beetle standing motionless in a road with the ant running all 

 over the surface of its body. The beetle, which proved to be 

 Cicindela unipunctata, ran actively when the observer attempted 

 to catch it. The ant was identified as Formica fusca, var. sub- 

 sericea. Mann (12) in his discussion of the ants of Brazil says 

 that Platythyrea meinerti probably lives in termites nests but does 

 not give any information as to whether or not the ants occupy 

 the same galleries with the termites. Crawley (5) also records 

 an ant {Dolichoderus debilis) that makes its formicary in the 

 nest of a termite. Termites were still living in the nest but 

 whether or not they mingled with the ants is not stated. Craw- 

 ley reports that the common leaf cutting ant (Atta cephalotes) 

 of British Guiana is accompanied by a muscid fly that laps up 

 an excretion from the tip of the ant's abdomen. 



Social Relations of Ants. — The Argentine ant (1) will not 

 tolerate any other species of ant but drives them out before it. 

 Among its own kind, however, it is extremely social and workers 



