424 WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER 



the habit of burying its larvse and with them the larvae of the 

 Atemeles. Later (1906) he regarded Myrmica as the primary 

 and Formica as the secondary host of Atemeles at the present 

 time, but the reverse as having been the phylogenetic relation. 

 Both of these views were held simultaneously by Wasmann 

 in 1908. Schmitz finds that Atemeles paradoxus in a nest of 

 Formica rufibarbis does not require the aid of the ants during 

 pupation, but may itself enter the earth and pupate. Schmitz 

 therefore rejects Wasmann 's first hypothesis, but accepts the 

 second and also Wasmann 's opinion that it is only the Atemeles 

 pupse which are forgotten and are not unearthed by the ants, 

 that are able to develop into the adult beetles. This hypothesis 

 seems also to have been invalidated by Wasmann himself when 

 he observed workers of F. rufibarbis standing guard for two weeks 

 over a place where they had buried some mature Atemeles larvas. 

 The attitude of the ants was such as to suggest very forcibly 

 that they remembered the spot in which they had deposited 

 their guests. See also Wasmann ^^ 



Vickery "^ confirms the observations of Walsh, Forbes, 

 Webster, Kelley, Phillips, Ainslee, and others on the relations 

 of Lasius niger var. americanus to the corn and root-aphid 

 {Aphis maidiradicis) . The ant collects the winter eggs of this 

 injurious aphid, stores them in its nest during the winter and 

 in the spring distributes the hatching young over the roots 

 of the growing maize. The ants then live very largely on the 

 sweet excrement of the aphids. Several other ants may bear 

 similar relations to this same aphid. Vickery also describes 

 another aphid (^4. middletoni) which has been confounded with 

 A. maidiradicis, but which lives on the roots of a common weed, 

 Erigeron canadensis, and other composites and has an even 

 larger list of attendant ants. 



Viehmeyer "^ describes the myrmecophilous organs of the 

 caterpillar of the lycaenid Catochrysops cue jus, namely, the 

 slit-shaped median pore in the antepenultimate abdominal 

 segment, the pair of eversible tubules on the penultimate 

 segment, and the small tufted hairs which cover the surface 

 of the caterpillar after its first moult and appear simultaneously 

 with the opening of the pore. These hairs, which are densest 

 near the pore, are supposed to be tactile and to apprise the 

 caterpillar of the presence of the ants; the eversible tubules 



