450 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



bracid (Anchon relatum) near which were two immature and one 

 mature jassid {Nehela ornata)^ which apparently were also probed 

 by the butterflies. Two specimens, one a male, the sex of the other 

 not given, were obtained which were sucking food from the fore wing 

 of one or other of two membracids {Le'ptocenti'us altifrons)^ which 

 were on a green stem side by side and were attended by 19 ants. 

 Another male was taken sucking food off the fore wings of 3 jassids 

 {Nehela ornata) ; 9 ants Avere in attendance. A female was taken 

 on a green stem probing with its tongue and evidently sucking up 

 food material from 3 jassids {Nehela ornata)^ Avhich were attended 

 by 5 ants. A male was captured probing with its proboscis a larva 

 of a membracid (probably Gargara variegata^ eaten by its own 

 larva) ; 17 ants were in attendance. 



Mr. Lamborn saw a Avorn Megalopalpus feeding on a fresh leafless 

 shoot covered with sticl^y secretion Avhich ants also were enjoying. 

 On the next day he saw the same individual in the same position, so, 

 Avith a view to subsequent identification, he trimmed its right hind 

 wing off square Avith a pair of scissors. When released it flew into 

 a shrub near by, but on the folloAving morning it had returned and 

 Avas again feeding. He saw it again on the tAvig the next day, and 

 four days after he first saw it, in the early CA'ening, he took it in 

 his fingers and put it in the killing bottle. 



Mr. John C. W. Kershaw found that the female of Gerydus chinen- 

 sis in order to oviposit alights in the midst of apliids and ants which 

 she thrusts aside Avith a brushing movement of her tail. Both male 

 and female are very found of exuding sap, and half a dozen may 

 occasionally be seen close together on a leaf or stem thrusting their 

 tongues into any interstices left by the aphids. The ants do not 

 appear to meddle either with the butterflies or with the eggs. It 

 seems in this case most probable that what the butterflies are search- 

 ing for is not plant sap but honey drippings from the aphids. Be- 

 fore the relationship betAveen the tAvo was known, Mr. Emery Avrote 

 that Fcjiiseca tarquinius alights upon the Avoolly plant lice of the 

 alder and Avitli the ants enjoys the copious exceedingly sweet liquid 

 exuded from their bodies. 



BUTTERFLIES AVITH HABITS SUGGESTING CARNIVOROUS PROPENSITIES 



Gerydus syTnethus. — Mr. Distant wrote that it has been erroneously 

 stated that this species inhabits ants' nests, but that no real facts can 

 be adduced in support of the assertion. 



Mr. de Niceville suggested it may be that ants cany the full- 

 groAvn larvae into their nests to perform their transformations as in 

 the case of Tarucus theojihrastus and other species (for instance 

 Catochrysops phasiiw, as reported by Mr. Farquharson) ; but that 



