NOTES ON INDIAN ANTS. 43 



of a spiny shrub like a dwarf babool, and I have not found ihem in 

 any other plant. This species was described from specimens taken 

 in the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. 



Pseudomyrma bicolor, Guer., Sin 



Sima rnfo-nigra (nigrum), Jerdon. 



This species (the female of which is figured and described by 

 Frederick Smith in the Entomological Transactions for March, 187o, 

 From my specimens taken at Barrackpore) is very common in Bengal; 

 it forms its nests in the dead (but not decayed) wood of trees, and it 

 can always be met with scouring over the trunks, particularly of 

 fruit-trees, like the mango (Mangifera indica), bael {Mrjk marmelos), 

 and lychee [Nepheliam. Liehi). Though so generally common, the 

 nests are not easy to find, and I only met with two thoroughly well- 

 established colonies that could be visited and watched year after year 

 (the first was situated in a tree in Barrackpore Road, opposite the 

 Park-gates, just where the trunk-road turns off by the Club ; the 

 other in a small tree iu the Park, in some waste ground by the viceregal 

 kitchen- garden. These nests I have spent hours in watching from 

 1874 to 188G). It is a very pugnacious species, and attacks almost 

 any insect that comes in its way ; I say almost, for I have seen it 

 distinctly avoid the big workers of compressus, and on one or two 

 occasions also the workers of CEcophtjUa smaragdina, when placed at 

 a slight' disadvantage in the way of position and numbers ; it is armed 

 with a very powerful sting, which inflicts by far the most painful 

 and lasting wound of any hymenopterous insect I am acquainted with, 

 and I have had experience of the stings of most Indian bees, wasps, 

 and. ants. It is very possible this may be considered by many who 

 know the ant as too high an estimate of its stinging powers, but 

 there are stings and stings. I have had hundreds of casual ones, and 

 thought no more of them than of the stings of a Polisfes or Pomptlus ; 

 but once allow this ant to get a firm hold with its mandibles, and 

 then, doubling its body, plunge its sting, so to speak, up to the hilt, 

 and go on stinging, and the result is an entomological experience 

 that few would care to try again. I have had several of these little 

 experiences, and will give the following details of the worst: — 



I was out collecting in Barrackpore Park, and one of these ants 

 got on my left hand and stung me just under a heavy snake-ring I 



