58 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



entrance in irregular mounds : when these mounds begin to assume 

 any dimensions the labour of piling up the husks is divided ; the 

 ant that brings one out will throw it down just outside, or will mount 

 a short distance up the mound, when another will meet and take on 

 the husk and add it to the top, or when the mound is a certain height, 

 will shoot it down on the far side to prevent its tumbling back on the 

 entrance of the nest. Sometimes three or four ants will be engaged 

 in this process, bringing out, passing on, piling up, and shooting down. 

 The ants bringing in the full seeds collect them amongst the grass, 

 which at this time of the year is dry and ripe, and consequently much 

 of the seed is on the ground. I have never observed them ascending 

 the grass-stems to collect the seed. As soon as the rains commence — 

 about -Tune loth— the ants seem to disappear, and although you can 

 find specimens about up to October, they are decidedly scarce, 



I have tried very many times to unearth one of these nests, but 

 never (except in one instance) with any success. Directly you dig down 

 a few inches in the hard bricky soil you seem to lose all trace of ants 

 and nest. I have tried various instruments — a garden-knife, a long 

 bodkin, and a kourpi (a very handy native tool) — but have always 

 failed ; the way the ants disappear is almost like magic. No doubt 

 I ought to have tried a kodali (native spade), but extensive excavations 

 where these ants formed their nests were hardly practicable without 

 obtaining the permission of the Park authorities, which I never took 

 the trouble to do at the time, though now I have left India 1 never 

 cease to regret that I did not dig down several feet deep and a yard 

 or two square. 



The one exception I have alluded to was a very small nest, situated 

 in the Viceregal kitchen-garden part of the Park, and where the soil 

 was a sort of stiff clay instead of brick- rubble ; the tunnels were very 

 small and fine, and there was nothing peculiar about their formation, 

 but in the centre, a few inches from the surface, was a small oval 

 chamber, perfectly smooth and dome-shaped ; in this were arranged 

 a number of little round seeds, set out like cheese-cakes on a baker's 

 tray. From the habits of this species I should be inclined to call it 

 the "harvesting ant of Bengal." It was described by Dr. Mayr from 

 my first specimens, which were taken at Nischindipore, having been 

 kindly forwarded by my old friend, the late Mr. Frederick Smith. 



