364 ants' nests. 



find no more crosspieces, but only silk threads. They are, how- 

 ever, still irregular, of varying thickness, spun across each other 

 into a web. This web is fixed in a wonderful manner in the 

 ground, where it forms the lining of a funnel-shaped cave, which 

 is widened out into a cham.ber at the bottom. The honour of the 

 discovery of this highly interesting nest is due to Mr. Wroughton ; 

 he found it in Poonah, India. Mr. L. Schoter made the some- 

 what schematic drawing of the nest, in its natural position, from 

 an original sketch by Mr. Wroughton (Fig. 8). We refer the 

 reader to the drawing and to the explanation of the plates. 



The large nest constructed in the foliage of trees, between the 

 leaves, by CEcophylla S7?taragdina, Fabr., one of the most common 

 ants of tropical Asia and tropical Africa, forms, however, the pro- 

 totype of spun ants' nests. A great number of leaves are fastened 

 together by a fine, white web, hke the finest silk stuff. This web, 

 apart from the colour, has exactly the same appearance, both to 

 the naked eye and under \V.-c micioocope, as that of Polyrhachis 

 spinigera. The leaves are usually fastened together by the edges. 

 The nest is large, and the large, long, very vicious, reddish to 

 greenish worker ants live in it, with their grass-green females, their 

 black males, and their whole brood. They form very populous 

 colonies in the branches of the trees. Fig. lo represents a portion 

 of the nest of CEcophylla s??iaragdma, with the web and the 

 borders of the leaves which are fastened together. 



Now, how do the ants spin ? This has, unfortunately, so far 

 as I know, never yet been observed sufficiently closely. Not even 

 the way in which the pasteboard of our European ants is made 

 has been discovered. Lasius fuliginosus has never consented to 

 work before my eyes. At all events, the spinning of CEcophylla^ 

 which works in broad daylight, ought to be the first to be seen, 

 and, in fact, the only minute observations on this subject known 

 to me, by E. H. Aitken, in the Journal of the Bombay Natural 

 History Society, 1890, Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 422 (" Red Ants' Nests"), 

 now lie before me. 



Aitken saw how CEcophylla fastened two leaves together. A 

 worker went to the base of the two leaves, at the point at which 

 they began to separate, placed his hind legs, which are furnished 

 with sharp claws, upon one of the leaves and drew the other leaf 



