38 JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



NOTES ON INDIAN ANTS. 



By George Alexander J. Rothivey, F.E.S. 

 [Head be/ore the Entomological Society, London, 3rd April 1889.) 

 The following notes (which I have been encouraged to offer to 

 the Society by the kind assurance of my friend Mr. Edward Saun- 

 ders that they might be of some interest to hymenopterists) are 

 confined to my written memoranda of a few only of the more con- 

 spicuous or interesting of the Indian species • which have been con- 

 stantly under my observation from March 1872 to March 1886. 



Now that I have left India, I often feel sorry I did not turn to 

 better account such a splendid field for the study of these most 

 fascinating insects, but the calls and duties of a business life, and the 

 necessity of spending much of one's spare time in outdoor sports, 

 which in India means not only relaxation but health, very greatly 

 reduce the leisure available for steady entomological work, and, as 

 these notes will show, almost restrict one's observations to Sundays 

 and holidays ; still there have been many neglected opportunities, 

 and I shall always regret having failed to find the female of Dorylus, 

 and to dig up a satisfactory nest of Holcomyrmex indicus. 



Looking back on Indian ants generally, it is strongly impressed 

 upon my mind by many an unrecorded observation that not only do 

 different species vary as widely in habits and character as do the 

 numerous and distinct nationalities inhabiting this wonderful country, 

 but that individuals of the same species will occasionally exhibit, 

 when under apparently similar conditions and circumstances, different 

 little traits and dispositions, so that if you attempt to fix any hard 

 and fast lines as to ant-conduct you are apt to find your calculations 

 and theories somewhat upset. 



Mr. Edward Saunders has kindly assisted me in determining some 

 of the ant-puzzles, and I am happy to say that my Indian collections 

 of Hymenoptera are now in Mr. Cameron's able hands for description. 



Camponotus compressus, Formica compressa, Fabr. 

 The Black Ant of India. 

 This species is very common in Bengal, and can be seen in numbers 

 almost everywhere, but it becomes comparatively rare as you get up- 

 country to Oudh, the North- West Provinces, and the Punjaub, where 



