NOTES ON INDIAN ANTS. 6? 



across. I then conducted two or three over, and waited an hour ; 

 one of the led ants recrossed, but no others availed themselves of tho 

 bridge. I then went for the usual evening drive, and on my return 

 niter a couple of hours I found the ants crossing the bridge in num- 

 bers. I repeated this experiment many times with exactly the same 

 result. Say barrier fixed at 3 p.m., bridge erected at 4 p.m., and a 

 few ants led over ; at 6. p.m. no ants had availed themselves of the 

 bridge, but at 8 p.m., on my return from my drive or tennis, the 

 bridge would be in general use ; but never while looking on did the 

 ants avail themselves of the passage, except as mentioned by a led 

 ant recrossing. 



On one or two occasions I captured a worker of Diacamma vagans, 

 and placed her above the kerosine cord ; without a moment's hesitation 

 she ran up the column to the capital, made her way rapidly through 

 the red ants, then along a beam to the next column, then down to the 

 floor of the verandah, and off to her nest without a pause. 



So/cnopsis offer many strange contrasts of character ; they are very 

 clever in making their covered ways, and in finding their own booty, 

 such as described, but when you apply artificial tests of intelligence 

 they altogether fail, and seem to be strangely slow and disappointing. 



Hofoomyrrnex indicus, Mayr. 

 This ant does not appear to be generally common in Bengal. I 

 have taken it at Nischindipore Nucldea, and in Barrackpore Park, 

 but never in Calcutta or its immediate neighbourhood. It is very 

 plentiful in Barrackpore Park, in the private grounds close to Govern- 

 ment House, where it delights in making its nests in the red kunka 

 (ballast) roads, or on any hard dry patch of ground that can be found 

 amongst the grass. The ants swarm early in June, and during the 

 hot months from middle of March to the middle of June you can 

 easily find the nests by the great mounds heaped up round the en- 

 trance of empty seed-vessels or husks of grass-seed, I may call it 

 chaff ; these mounds will more than fill a pint measure, and I have 

 seen some which I think would fill a quart. If you watch you will 

 see a continuous but straggling stream of ants disappearing down one 

 of the small round entrances to their nests, each carrying a grass-seed, 

 which they bring from the neighbouring grass, and another stream 

 will be seen emerging with the chaff, which they heap up round the 

 8 



