ants' nests. 351 



moss, etc. My friend and colleague, Professor StoU, found the 

 nests of Campotwtiis atriceps^ Sm., race stereo rarius (Forel), con- 

 stantly under the dried excrement of cattle, and even inside of it, 

 in Guatemala. 



Pere Camboue, in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sent me a stalk 

 of Solafium auriculatu?fi, the soft marrow of which, excavated and 

 divided into compartments, served as a nest for Techno77iyrmex 

 albipes^ Smith. In this case the gnawing capacity of the ants had 

 made the natural object serviceable. A portion of this nest is 

 represented in Fig. 2, two-thirds of natural size. 



Dr. Goldi, in Rio Janeiro, sent me several specimens of Cam- 

 ponotus cingulatus, Mayr., a very handsome, rather large ant, as 

 the regular inhabitant of the hollows (internodes) of the bamboos 

 there. Pere Camboue, in Antananarivo, sent me Prenolepis ellisii^ 

 Forel, from the hollow stalks of one of the Malvaceae, in which it 

 lives. Major Yerbury, of Ceylon, sent me, by Mr. Wroughton, 

 Camponoius reticulatus^ Roger, with its nest, which was also in a 

 hollow stalk. Mr. Wroughton, divisional forest officer at Poonah, 

 India, sent me the nests of a very small ant, Ca7'diocondyla 

 wroughtonii^ Forel, which he had found in the space between the 

 two surfaces of the leaves of a tree {Eugenia jambola?ui), the 

 parenchym of which (the green of the leaf between the exterior 

 membranes) had evidently been devoured by a very small cater- 

 pillar. This nest of Cardiocondyla wroughtonii is represented in 

 Fig. 3 by Mr. L. Schroter. 



The well-known ant nests in the hollow acacia thorns of 

 tropical lands also belong to this class ; but more on this sub- 

 ject hereafter. 



2. — Earth Nests. 



Earth is the most usual material for the nest-building of ants. 

 It is well known (Gould, Huber, etc.) that the ordinary earth 

 structures (mounds) of many of our ants are created by the 

 workers mining under ground after rainy weather, bringing the wet 

 particles of earth to the surface of the ground, and pressing them 

 into walls and vaults by means of their mandibles and forelegs, 

 using at the same time blades of grass, etc., as pillars and inside 

 walls. In this way are made the well-known labyrinths, which I 



