Prof. 0. Ileer on the House Ant of Madeira. 215 



placed in front of my room, on a balcony, a Cactus (Opuntia 

 Ficus indica'-^f L.), with cochineal insects, in order to acquaint 

 myself more closely with the metamorphoses of these wonderful 

 little creatures. Soon however the ants made their appearance 

 here also, and, by degrees, ate up all the cochineals. This is a 

 fact very well worth noting, since our ant must do great injury 

 to the cochineal-breeding, which for some years past has become 

 of the greatest importance to the Canary Islands. At least I 

 saw this ant very plentiful in cochineal-gardens, where they 

 ought to be exterminated as much as possible. 



The predaceous animals, as a rule, spare those of their own kind. 

 Strange to say, this is not the case with our ant. In hope of 

 becoming more closely acquainted with their oeconomy, I placed 

 four winged females, with two soldiers and six labourers, in a 

 glass, which was stopped at top, but with a hole in the stopper 

 just large enough to let the labourers go out and in, but not the 

 bigger soldiers and females. These therefore were obliged to 

 remain in the glass, in which was placed sufficient food. The 

 glass was soon entered by other labourers from without, which 

 presently attacked the females and tore up their wings. Since 

 the labourers are said to tear off the females^ wings to prevent 

 their flying away from the nests, I thought at first the matter 

 might be thus explained ; but in the course of a few days the 

 females had their antennse and legs also torn off; and at last 

 we found their heads pulled off, and the labourers busy in 

 tearing them completely asunder, and in carrying away the 

 separate pieces out of the place. Strange to say, the females 

 did not defend themselves in the least, which would however 

 have been easy for them to do, from their considerably larger 

 size and stronger fangs. They bore all these attacks with the 

 greatest, and to us incomprehensible, resignation. Nay more ; 

 even the soldiers were attacked, and one of them killed ; some 

 of the labourers took all sorts of pains to carry away the head, 

 and get it through the little hole in the stopper ; but through 

 this it would not pass. Thus individuals of their own species 

 are killed and eat up when they are found in circumstances in 

 which they can be no longer profitable, as was the case with 

 these individuals shut up in the glass. Not unfrequently I saw 

 ants that had been hurtf carried away by labourers, to which 



* Rather 0. Tuna (Mill.), D.C., which is the common species in Madeira, 

 and that on which the Cochineal there usually exists. I do not recollect to 

 have ever seen the true O. Ficus indica, L., in the island, though 0. vulgaris. 

 Mill., sometimes occurs. — R. T. Lowe. 



t But apparently healthy ants also were sometimes carried off in this way. 

 Rengger relates the same thing (Reise nach Paraguay, S. 250) of the Isau 

 ant {(Ecodoma cephalotes, Latr.). " The labourers are very often seen," 



