216 Prof. 0. Heer on the House Ant of Madeira. 



they had affixed themselves by laying hold with their fangs at 

 the abdominal pedicle. I imagined that they were carrying 

 them to the nest to nurse them^ in the same way as they treat 

 their young with the greatest care; but the very barbarous 

 habit above related would make it seem more probable that they 

 were carried into the nest in order to be there fed upon, as being 

 no more capable of work. With the ants, everything is turned 

 to the most careful possible advantage of the common stock ; and 

 this reaches so far, that one of the same species, nay, even of 

 the same family, is not spared, when it can no longer serve its 

 purpose. 



With this bad propensity, it must seem very strange that any 

 different sorts of animals should be ever met with in their nests. 

 Snails, worms, caterpillars, and such like, in general are never 

 found under the same stone ; seldom even a millepede [Julus), 

 which they however attack only when the nest is disturbed, 

 and then all the ants of every sort fall with great fury on the 

 strangers, as if they considered these the cause of the misfortune 

 which has befallen them. The millepedes then try, with violent 

 contortions, to get free from the ants that cling to them. But 

 claiming attention as animals peculiar to ants, are a Coccus, and 

 a very curious little beetle (Cossyphodes Wollastonij Westw.), 

 which is never found elsewhere. I found it first in an ants^-nest 

 in the country ; but afterwards in the balcony of our apartment, 

 where an ant-colony had established itself in a tub in which 

 grew a Diosma alba, L.* I have seen at different times more 

 examples of the same insect, and always at the entrance of the 

 nest. For what reason this very peculiar httle beetle lives in 

 these ant-colonies, I am not able to explain. We are acquainted 

 already with a great number of minute beetles which occur in the 

 ant-nests of our own country. Some of these (such as the little 

 club-beetles) are regularly tended by the ants ; and, as T have 

 often satisfied myself, they are carried down into the deeper parts 

 of the nest with the same care and anxiety as the pupse when 

 the nest is disturbed; but the others are probably merely 

 tolerated, without being adopted into the family. The Cossy- 

 phodes seems to belong to the former class. 



says he, " travelling home laden with another of themselves. These are 

 not chance prisoners from another nest, but they belong to one and the 

 same household; for the one carried is often bigger than its bearer. 

 Besides, I have often observed, when two ants were returning home, that 

 one would lay hold of the other and carry it home. If moreover its load 

 be taken from one of these carriers and placed on the ground, both travel 

 then along the same road quietly home." The like has been observed also 

 amongst our own ants. (Compare Huber, * Recherches sur les Moeurs des 

 Fourmis,' p. 140.) 



* Diosma ericoides (Sims), Curt. Bot. Mag. t. 2332. — Tr. 



