BEHAVIOR OF ANTS AND MYRMECOPHILES 443 



foraging at the close of the day, and asks if this could be caused 

 by the need of the direct influence of the light for guidance. 



In addition to light and the muscular memory there must 

 be some other influence. Two hypotheses are suggested. Either 

 the ant possesses a magnetic sense, or there is some internal organ 

 that records sensations made in describing angles on the out- 

 going trail. 



Ruschkamp (31) found in Holland the first stage of an adop- 

 tion-colony of Formica rufa by F. fusca. A single dealated 

 rufa queen was in a nest occupied by a weak fusca colony. No 

 fusca queen was present. This mixed colony was placed in an 

 artificial nest and observed for some time. The alien queen 

 had been completely adopted. 



Wasmann (32) describes an extraordinary Staphylinid beetle, 

 found in West Africa with the army ant, Dorylus (Annoma) 

 nigricans subsp. sjostedti. This beetle, named Mimanomma 

 spectrum, is a most striking example of mimicry, with greatly 

 elongated thorax, short, thick antennae and ant-like abdomen. 

 The latter has the first two segments small and constricted, 

 resembling in form the petiole and post-petiole of Annoma, and 

 the general form of the body is more ant-like than even the 

 Staphylinid Mimeciton pulex, hitherto the most remarkable ant 

 mimic among the beetles. A number of species of the family 

 Staphylinidae are exceedingly similar in form to the ants with 

 which they live; also some of the parasitic Hymenoptera and 

 even Diptera which live with, ants resemble them closely, but 

 none are so greatly modified as this new species described by 

 Wasmann. 



Wasmann (33) gives a list of some forty species of inquilines 

 recorded from the nests of one species of ant, Solenopsis gemi- 

 nata. These represent the orders Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymen- 

 optera, Thysanura, Acarinae and Diplopoda. A number of 

 guests of East Indian species of Pheidole are listed also, and 

 several new species of myrmecophilous Coleoptera are described. 



Wasmann considers that the adaptations to myrmecophily in 

 the European lady-beetle, Coccinella distincta, present a Dar- 

 winian paradox. The larva of this beetle lives unmolested in 

 the nests of species of Camponotus and Formica, where it feeds 

 on scale' insects which" are fostered by the ants and from which 



