THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[SECOND SERIES.] 

 No. 99. MARCH 1856. 



XVI. — On the House Ant of Madeira. By Professor O. Heer, 

 of Zurich. Translated from the original* by R. T. Lowe, 



M.A.t 



[With a Plate.] 



I. Apparition and Habits. 



Amongst the richly varied insect-tribes the Ants stand foremost 

 probably in point of numbers. We meet with them everywhere, 

 in field and garden, meadows and forests, from spring to latest 

 autumn. In general the unwinged labourers alone are seen ; 

 but in July and August the winged males and females issue from 

 their nests, and rise in such vast swarms into the air as to attract 

 occasionally general attention. This was especially the case in 

 August 1849. On the 7th of August immense swarms, consist- 

 ing of Mijrmica rubra, F., Formica fuliginosa, F., and F. nigra, 

 made their appearance in Winterthur. From two o'clock till 

 near sunset they appeared in small clouds, glistening in the sun 

 and reaching up into the higher regions of the atmosphere. 

 The ground in the town and its environs was quite strewed over 

 with these little winged creatures. On the 8th of August a whole 

 tract in width of the Lake of the Four Cantons, between Bauen 

 and Fliielen, was completely covered with little black, winged 

 ants (doubtless Formica fuliginosa, F.), so that from forty to fifty 

 could be taken up out of the water at one handful. Many were 

 yet alive; others were dead: they had not therefore been im- 

 mersed collectively, but must have fallen on the spot into the 

 water. On the same evening great bodies of the Formica full- 



* An die Zurcherische Jugend auf das Jahr 1852, von der Naturforsch- 

 enden Gesellschaft, liv. Stuck. 



t The Translator desires thus to express his special thanks to Professor 

 Heer for a copy of this valuable and interesting Memoir. 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. xvii. 14 



