CORRESPONDENCE 285 



On the lOtli. December last, whilst on the hills in the 

 neighbourhood of Orange Grove, I noticed a number of 

 ants attending to what appeared, on a cursory glance, to 

 be scattered white scales on the tips of the branches of 

 a wild fig. On looking closer, the scales turned out to be 

 markings on the skin of a caterpillar, which closely re- 

 sembled the bark of the young tips. The ants were of two 

 species, the common ant of S.A. and a small black one. 



B3' watching^ them, I was able to discover a number of 

 larvae, large and small, all of which were attended by the 

 ants and apparently took no notice of them. 



About the bush were flying one or two butterflies 

 (Myrina ficedula) and in a spider's web w^as a dead speci- 

 men. The latter and specimens of the caterpillars were 

 secured, as the tending of the larvae by ants struck me as 

 being so out of the common that I wanted to have them 

 identified.* 



C. X. Knox Davie s. 



COERESPONDENOE. 



Fahre and PartTienogenesis. 



Dear Sir, — With all the deference undoubtedly due to 

 Mr. C. P. Dad ant, it appears to be clear that in his notes 

 in the American Bee Journal, May 1918, he presumes 

 rather than shows that Fabre in his " Souvenirs Entomo- 

 logiques " denies the theory of Parthenogenesis in 

 relation to the Hymenoptera. His quotations from the 



*In the Cambridge Natural History, Insects vol. II., 

 there is a reference to this remarkable habit amongst the 

 caterpillars of Lycaenidae, to which family Myrina 

 ficedula belongs. (Editor.) 



