NOTES ON INDIAN ANTS. 45 



and in a great hurry; they are very quick in their movements, and 



are difficult to capture, and, being- very fragile, good specimens are 

 not very easily obtained. I have at times fancied I have seen them 

 imbibing some of the moisture from the bark where it has been 

 bruised or chafed, but I cannot be certain : they are evidently on a 

 special footing with the ants, and are, I should say, the only friends 

 Paeudomvrma has, with the exception of a sand-wasp, a new species 

 of Rhinopsis since described by Mr. Cameron, which also very closely 

 mimics rufo-nigra, and which, on first observing amongst the workers, 

 I took to be the male. It is very active ; I have seen three specimens 

 (but only captured one), two at the nest in the Barrackpore Road, 

 and one at the nest in the Park.* 



S. rufo-nigra appears to be fairly omnivorous, preying on live 

 insects, such as flies, moths, other ants, or anything it can capture ; 

 it is also very fond of over-ripe fruit, and there is a species of fig in 

 the Park, the fruit of which (about the size of a medlar) is always 

 riddled with these ants. I have not, however, found it on carrion, as 

 I have the workers of Doryhis and Sokitopsis. 



I have never observed the workers fighting amongst themselves in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of their own nest, but on other trees it 

 is not an uncommon occurrence to find little parties of six or eight 

 engaged in deadly battle. In May, 1883, I found five couples locked 

 in a death struggle on the trunk of a casuarina-tree ; I secured them, 

 and they did not let go their hold on being put in the collecting- 

 bottle, but died as they fought. It seems probable that these were 

 workers from different nests engaged in hunting, and a common 

 object had brought them into collision. 



S. rufo-nigra and GEcojyliylla smaragdina, Fabr. — In 1883 smarag- 

 dina, which had never for the previous ten years been a very common 

 ant in Barrackpore, appeared in large numbers, and advanced from 

 tree to tree along the trunk-road ; it came up opposite the Club and 

 the Park-gates, where the road turns round to the parade-ground and 

 Pulta. I watched the position of affairs with much interest, as 



* It is perhaps curious and worthy of remark that a species of Ampulex should so 

 exactly mimic this aut and mix with it on friendly terms, whilst another species, the 

 handsome compression, should behave towards it in the somewhat overbearing and 

 rough manner I have elsewhere described. 



