44 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



was wearing. I was foolish enough to allow it to operate in the 

 above-mentioned thorough fashion before I brushed her off, and 

 never thought of removing the ring until the finger was too swollen 

 to do so. On my return home I tried to reduce the swelling with 

 ice, but without success ; the whole hand puffed out, the inflammation 

 extending right up the arm to the shoulder ; the finger itself 'turned 

 blue, and looked and felt like bursting. I spent a wretched night, 

 and the first thing in the morning sent to the bazaar for a native 

 jeweller ( Johari), who cut the ring off for me, but it was a painful 

 operation, and it was two days before I was quite right again. I 

 was in perfect health at the time and in the football training, which 

 will give some idea of the effect of the poison when rufo-nigra has 

 sufficient time to make a really deliberate and well-sustained sting. 



In my compound at No. 45 Cantonment, Barrackpore, I had a very 

 fine bael-tree, covered every year with fruit, of which my mali 

 (native gardener) was especially fond ; but the tree was much fre- 

 quented by Pseudomyrma, and little " Adjun-mali" never went up to 

 pick the fruit without expressing many anathemas on this particular 

 sjDecies of ant. 



I have never found any swarming time for this species, but have 

 taken specimens of the winged female at different times during the 

 hot weather and rains, but generally in May ; but altogether I have 

 not captured more than about twenty specimens. From May 20th 

 to 24th, in 1879 to 1882, I captured each year a single female sitting 

 on a leaf of the mussel-shell creeper, Clitoria ternatea, on the east 

 side of the Chirya Khana (aviary), Barrackpore Park, and in almost 

 the same position. What the attraction for this particular spot was 

 I could never make out, and there were no nests in the immediate 

 neighbourhood. 



Wherever you find this species in any numbers, if you watch a 

 few moments, you will see a mimicking spider, Salticus, running 

 about amongst the ants, which it very closely resembles in appear- 

 ance, much more so in life than in set specimens placed side by 

 side; in my two favourite nests I have seen numbers on the most 

 friendly footing with the ants, though I have never seen them enter 

 their burrows. I have never seen these spiders doing anything, or 

 capturing any llv or other insect, though they are always very busy 



