50 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



from the same tree ; these were at once received with marked signs 

 of pleasure, were caressed, and entered the nest with their friends as 

 if perfectly at home, 



May 27th. Introduced ten specimens taken from a different tree ; 

 these at once showed signs of alarm, and endeavoured to escape ; but 

 most of them were seized, and would have been pulled to pieces had 

 I not rescued them. 



June 3rd. Introduced some more strangers, who showed alarm 

 and immediately made off till stopped by the water ; the captive 

 smaragdina, though showing signs of hostilit}^ were too feeble to 

 make any serious attack. 



I repeated this experiment many times, varying the intervals of 

 introducing friends and strangers from a few days up to the three 

 weeks, but always with the same result. I then altered the conditions 

 somewhat, and on June 10th cut a fine populous nest from a tree and 

 placed it on the trunk of one a few hundred yards distant, inhabited 

 by another colony. The ants from my nest immediately took posses- 

 sion of the fork where I had placed the nest, overpowering the few 

 ants that happened to be about ; but others came streaming down to 

 repel the invaders. My nest continued to pour forth its swarms, and 

 soon the trunk was covered with masses of struggling yellow ants*. 

 It was, as far as I could judge, a drawn battle. 



I then withdrew my nest, and hung it up to the trunk of a tree 

 frequented by Pseudomyrma rufo-nigra. Out sallied the yellow ants, 

 and rufo-nigra in alarm made off, and in doing so showed a great 

 amount of discretion ; they had not the numbers to make a stand-up 

 fight, but their superior individual strength enabled the few that 

 were attacked to deal out some rapid and effective strokes with man- 

 dibles and sting, to wrench themselves clear and escape without 

 injury. I then took the nest of smaragdina back to the tree from 

 which I cut it, and the ants were at once received with every sign of 

 pleasure ; and, although hundreds must have been left behind 

 on the two trees, the nest appeared to be as populous as ever. 



On another occasion I hung a nest of smaragdina to a small 

 Palmyra palm in my compound, which was occupied by a strong nest 

 of the yellow wasp, PoUstea hebroeus, but the ants and wasps did not 

 come into contact in any way, although they were only separated 



