Sept., I9II.] Wheeler: An Ant-Nest Coccinellid. 169 



2. X. montana Casey. 



Summer host: Formica subpoiita (Wirtner). 



Winter hosts: Camponotus levigatus (Schwarz, Fenyes) ; C. herculeanus 

 var. modoc (Fenyes). 



3. X. caseyi Wasmann. 



Summer host: Formica subpoiita (Wirtner). 



4. X. sharpi Wasmann. 



Winter host: Camponotus auricomus (Wasmann). 



5. X. angusta Fall. 



Winter host : Camponotus fallax subsp. discolor var. clarithorax (Fenyes). 



AN ANT-NEST COCCINELLID (BRACHYACANTHA 

 QUADRIPUNCTATA MELS.).^ 



By William Morton Wheeler, 

 Boston, Mass. 



Early in May, 1910, while I was collecting on the rocky southern 

 slope of Great Blue Hill near Boston, Mass., my curiosity was 

 aroused by some snow-white insects, resembling gigantic Coccids, in 

 several nests of Lasins iimbratus var. aphidicola. From hasty exami- 

 nation I conclude that these insects, which were moving about slowly 

 or resting among the root-Coccids and root- Aphids so abundant during 

 the spring months in the aphidicola nests, must be predaceous Coc- 

 cinellid larvje. Unfortunately, the vial in which they were collected 

 dropped from my pocket and was lost before I could examine them at 

 my leisure. 



May 6, 191 1, on returning to the same locality, I succeeded in 

 finding ten of the larvae in two nests of the same ant. Each of these 

 nests also contained a large number of root-Coccids. Larvae, ants 

 and Coccids were taken home and placed in an artificial nest. The 

 larvae, when first found, were covered with dense tufts of delicate 

 white wax, but these broke off in transit through rubbing against par- 

 ticles of earth, so that the specimens were almost denuded when they 

 were installed in the nest. New tufts of wax, however, at once 

 began to be secreted, and by May 15 the larvae had the appearance 



' Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institu- 

 tion, Harvard University, No. 43. 



