ANTS. 113 



(Ecophylla Smaragdina, Fabr., is a common Indian ant, allied 

 to C. Herculaneus, but smaller. It is remarkable for its green colour 

 (very unusual among ants, which are generally black, brown, or 

 red). It lives in trees, and constructs a large nest of live leaves, 

 connected as they grow on the tree by a white web. Polyrhachi-, 

 Smith, is another genus of East Indian ants, remarkable for the 

 long spines placed on different parts of the body. Little is known 

 of their habits ; but P. Nidificans, Jerdon, is said by its desci'iber 

 to make " a small nest about half an inch or rather more in diameter, 

 of some papyraceous materials, which it fixes on a leaf" 



Formica Fuliginosa, Latr., is a common jet-black ant, rather 

 less than a quarter of an inch long. According to Mr. F. Smith, 

 its nests are generally found near a decaying tree or an old post, 

 and its movements are unusually slow, and it seems very fond 

 of sunning itself, instead of being constantly at work. But con- 

 sidering the high state of civilisation to which many ants have 

 attained ; how some keep slaves, almost all herds of much greater 

 variety and far more numerous than our own ; how others grow 

 corn ; and others make great roads and tunnels vastly more 

 gigantic in proportion than any human engineer would dream for 

 a moment of attempting, we need not wonder that some com- 

 munities should allow themselves an occasional holiday. It has 

 long been known that many kinds of insects are found in ants' 

 nests, and that many species derive much of their food from 

 honey-dew, the sweet secretion discharged by Aphidm, or Plant 

 Lice. But, according to some recent observations of M. Lichten- 

 stein, a French entomologist, who has made a special study of the 

 Aphides, Formica., Fuliginosa is not content to watch over colonies 

 of Aphidce, or to keep herds in its nest, like other ants, but 

 actually superintends their breeding in a manner which could 

 hardly be imagined. Many Ajphidce exhibit the phenomenon known 

 as alternation of generations ; that is, there is a winged sexual brood, 

 and a wingless asexual brood ; and sometimes the former lives in 

 the open air, and the latter at the roots of plants. When, therefore, 

 these ants meet with a winged Aphis about to lay eggs which will 

 produce a subterranean brood, they first clip her wings to prevent 

 iier escape, and then open a way for her, and guide her down to 

 the roots of the grass. But when winged Aphidce are born in 

 their nests, they do not clip their wings, but open a way for them 

 into the air, that they may fly to the plants on which their young 

 are to feed, and thus insure the perpetuation of the species. 



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