56 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



the cold weather from November to February. The workers vary 

 greatly in size, some of the workers-major having immensely-deve- 

 loped heads, but you seldom meet these big fellows walking about ; 

 they seem to keep to the nest of good deal, and all my finest speci- 

 mens have been found by opening up a nest. These ants are very 

 fond of forming covered ways from one point of a colony to another, 

 or in crossing a road, and they both tunnel and build up and are 

 very clever in availing themselves of any little irregularities in the 

 ground, by which they can save themselves labour. For instance, on 

 a piece of smooth even ground, they will build up a covered way, but 

 if their track comes across a stone they will tunnel under it ; if a big 

 brick they will skirt the side of it. They do not completely cover in 

 their ways along the whole line ; a great part of the track will gene- 

 rally consist of two walls only. The medium-sized workers, as well 

 as the small, take part in these works, but the giant-headed fellows 

 I have never found engaged. 



These ants will come into your bungalows and clear off any loot 

 that may be about, and they seem particularly fond of meat, or any 

 insect you may kill. Supposing you have a flight of cockroaches 

 (B. orienfal/s) come into your room at dinner-time, and in self-defence 

 and to preserve say your soup or glass from being used as a bath you 

 kill one or two, and leave the bodies on the ground, in a very short 

 time, long before you have finished your meal, you will see these 

 bodies apparently become endued with a new life, and travelling at a 

 quite rapid pace across the floor ; it is swarms of the little workers of 

 Sofciiopsis carrying off the booty to their nest. 



In one bungalow at Barraclqiore I had a colony in my verandah 

 formed in one of the masonry columns, and divided into two parts, 

 one in the base and one in the capital, and up and down the column 

 between was a continual stream of ants passing. It occurred to me 

 one day to cut off this passage, which I did by soaking a punkah-cord 

 in kerosine oil, and tying it tightly round the centre of the column. 

 The ants on either side soon surged up in masses to within an inch of 

 the cord, but none could cross the oily barrier. I then formed a little 

 bridge with a piece of bamboo, and fixed it in the brick- work, making 

 a clear span over the cord, and the ends being fixed well in the crowd 

 of ants. I then watched for an hour, but no ants found their way 



