WHEELER— ANT LARV^. 315 



Some of the details in his account and figures are far from clear, 

 but there can be no doubt about his meaning. Equally interesting is 

 his description of the larvfe of certain symphilic myrmecophiles 

 {Lomechusa, Atcmclcs and Xenodusa) concerning which he writes: 



The cuticula of the whole body, excepting the head, is membranous and 

 whitish. Outer exudate organs (i. e., trichomes) are lacking. The exudate 

 tissue is exclusively the fat-bod}\ 



He believes, in other words, that in these larvae the voluminous fat- 

 body functions as a huge exudatorium which pours a fatty exudate 

 onto the surface of the body. This at once suggests that in many 

 ant larvse the general fat-body may have the same function, so that 

 there would be in these insects three possible sources of liquid sub- 

 stances agreeable to the worker ants, the salivary glands, the exuda- 

 toria sensu stricto and the fat-body. They would not all be equally 

 developed in any given species, but at any rate there is just as much 

 reason for supposing that the general fat-body may function as an 

 exudate organ in the ant-larva as in the larvae of the Lomechusine 

 myrmecophiles. Kriiger (1910) and Jordan (1913) have cleared 

 up some of the obscurities in Wasmann's paper, especially in regard 

 to the trichome glands of hypodermal origin, but in my opinion have 

 not invalidated his general conclusions in regard to the role of the 

 fat-body and blood in exudation.' 



animals. Many nonmyrmecophilous insects have similar glands that serve to 

 diffuse sexually attractive secretions. The question arises as to whether 

 many of the hair-tufts in mammals may not have an analogous function. 

 Anthropologists seem not to have explained the retention of hairs in the 

 axillary and pubic regions of man. It is evident that the hairs in the arm- 

 pits serve rapidly to diffuse and evaporate the secretions of the sudorific glands. 

 The pits full of trichomes on the thorax of many symphilic Paussid beetles 

 are strangely suggestive in this connection. The function of the public hairs 

 is not so clear, but perhaps certain bats which have peculiar tufts about the 

 genitalia (see. e. g., the figures of the Congolese Hipposideros langi Allen in 

 Bull. Amcr. Mus. Nat. Hist., yi, iQi?, PP- 436, 437) may indicate that in the 

 remote past the pubic hairs had a sexual function in the ancestors of man. 



"^ For a critique of Jordan's work and for further discussion of the struc- 

 ture and development of Lomechusa and Atcmelcs the reader is referred to 

 Wasmann's recent monograph : " Neue Beitrage zur Biologic von Lomechusa 

 und Atemeles " (1915). 



