OUR IIYMENOTTERA. 31 



our bungalows (Camponotus ardeus) (with liis country cousins 

 sylvaticiis and callidus), as well as his deadly enemy the small black 

 ant, whose name I do not know, but who seems to spring in hun- 

 dreds from nowhere when sugar has been left about, are all 

 Formicina. To which, also belong the ants which at Mabaleshwar, 

 Matheran, &c, trace out white paths on the ground. 



2. Ponerince, which like the Formicince, have only one node, or 

 knot, on the abdominal stalk, but they sting most severely. There 

 do not seem to be very many species of Ponerince. The common 

 species is a large insect living under stones in comparatively small 

 communities. Its sting is quite as severe as that of a bee. 



3. Myrmecince, which are very numerous. They have two nodes 

 on the abdominal stalk. To the Myrmecince belong all the various 

 kinds which harvest grass seed ; also the ant which, living under 

 ground, raises concentric mud rings round the mouth of its nest' 

 In another species of the Myrmecince, common enough in the 

 Konkan, the workers are very miuute, but the queen is a compara- 

 tively gigantic insect, being f in. long. This species has at least two 

 classes of "soldiers" of different sizes, the smallest of which would 

 make half a dozen of the miuute workers. As far as I have been 

 able to discover, this species is stone-blind ; in fact, as far as the 

 worker is concerned, has no eyes. 



I have seen a column of these ants in course of migration. A 

 number of workers went ahead and budt a covered way or tunnel 

 in which the main body travelled, dragging with them dead earth- 

 worms, beetles, &c. It was curious to notice that in this commis- 

 sariat-transport work a willing hand was lent by the smaller-sized 

 soldiers. When, however, I broke down the tunnel, a halt was called, 

 and parties of workers set to work to repair the damage, but as 

 this manual labour, though fussing about a great deal, the soldiers 

 were too proud to assist. The larger soldiers were evidently purely 

 fighters, for they did not help even in the transport of provisions. 

 I believe this ant to be a species of the genus Pheidolor. 



There is another insect very common in Bombay, and which in its 

 female or queen form swarms about the lamps at certain seasons. 

 It is a palish brown ant, with a large unwieldy body. It belongs 

 to the J)orylidce, as to whose place among the hj/menoptera there 

 does not seem to be unanimity of opinion. While some place it 

 as a distinct sub-division of the Heterogyna, some go to the other 

 extreme and class it with the Ponerince. 



