426 WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER 



The queens of sanguinea may establish their colonies by robbing 

 and rearing the pupae of fusca, by allying themselves with 

 queens of fusca or by being adopted, by fusca workers. Onto- 

 genetically these three types of dependent colony formation 

 represent three different adaptations to conditions which may 

 happen to prevail at the time when the sanguinea queens have 

 to be assisted by fusca. Phylogenetically the three types 

 represent successive stages of degeneration in the social para- 

 sitism of sanguinea. Viehmeyer opposes Wasmann's contention 

 that the predatory parasitism of this ant has had its phyletic 

 origin in adoption of the characters displayed by the female 

 Formic (B of the rufa group. 



Viehmeyer ''" agrees with Emery and disagrees with Wasmann 

 in deriving the adoptive type of colony formation, like that 

 of the acervicolous species of Formica {F. rufa) and allied forms 

 of this group, from the predatory type of species like F. san- 

 guinea. He does not believe that the queen of rufa exhibits 

 a mingling of dulotic and predatory instincts. These are merely 

 maternal in character. The dulotic condition of sanguinea 

 may have developed directly, as it has in all probability de- 

 veloped in Harpagoxenus, from the thieving (cleptobiotic) 

 proclivities which are so common among ants. 



Wasmann ^", after many years of observation in Luxemburg, 

 has come to the conclusion that several beetles of the genus 

 Staphylinus, especially 5. stercorarius, have taken to preying on 

 ants. In other words, these beetles have become synechthrans, 

 at any rate in certain localities. Single individuals of S. ster- 

 corarius were regularly found in nests of Tetramorium ccBspitum, 

 especially during the summer. On being placed in an artificial 

 nest of this ant, the beetle was at first attacked by the workers, 

 but succeeded in escaping by burying itself in the earth. Later 

 Wasmann saw it emerging from its hiding place and preying 

 on the brood and the ants themselves. 5. fossor seems to bear 

 similar relations to Formica sanguinea. 



Wasmann ^^^ reviews and discusses his own often published 

 views on the symphilic relations of ants and myrmecophiles, and 

 reiterates his belief in special " symphilic instincts," which 

 impell ants and termites to react in peculiar and often selective 

 ways towards their guests and parasites ; as opposed to the views 

 of Escherich, Wheeler, and Schimmer, who regard symphily as 



