HARVESTING ANTS. 177 



minute, shining-brown beetle moving about among 

 the seeds. These little creatures were themselves not 

 unlike some very small seeds, and were of an elliptic 

 form, measuring a trifle less than one line in length. 

 They proved to belong to the scarce and very re- 

 stricted genus Coluoccra.^ This species, named by 

 Kraatz C. atfce, on account of its inhabiting the nests 

 of ants belonging to the genus Atia, has been found 

 in Greece. 



Mr. Bates,f in his most interesting account of his 

 travels on the Amazons, remarks upon the singular 

 fact, of which the above instance is an example : 

 " that some of the most anomalous forms of Coleopte- 

 rous insects are those which live solely in the nests of 

 ants," and he then goes on to allude to the strange 

 snake AmpJiisbana, a native of that region, which also 

 lives in the nests of the Sauba ants {(Ecodoma cepha- 

 lotes), observing how curious it is that an abnormal 

 i'orm of snakes should be found in the society of these 

 insects. He is of opinion, however, that the AmpJtis- 

 hmna is not an inoffensive guest, but lives upon the 

 ants whose nest it selects for its home. 



Another remarkable inhabitant of ants' nests is a 

 minute cricket, of which I found a single example in 

 the midst of a colony of black ants at Mentone in 

 February, IS 74. This miniature cricket is scarcely 

 as large as a grain of wheat, the body, excluding the 

 antennse and other appendages, measuring only two 

 lines in length. It has been described by Dr. Paolo 



* I am indebted to Mr. F. Smith of the British Museum for the name of this 

 beetle and for the followng reference to its description ; Kraatz in Berliner 

 Eiitomologiache ZeiUchrift for 1858-9, p. 140. 



+ Naturalist on the Amazons, p. 61-2 (Ed. 2, 1864). 



