1S97.] 183 



and 5th). I had received this species from the same locality some 

 years ago, and was particularly anxious to secure some males of it. 

 But, even at that period, the males were apparently over. I could 

 not find a single specimen. Perhaps, like other Andrenidcs, the species 

 may have appeared unusually early this season. 



Brunswick, Woking : 



Jult/ 7th, 1897. 



Habits of Formica rufa. — I thought my note on Formica ntfa on page 141 would 

 have been understood by readers of this Magazine, but it appears, by the remarks on 

 page 158, that I was mistaken, and fearing othei's may have doubt, I here observe 

 that the whole community must have been at work many weeks before the 22nd 

 April, the day on which I observed the winged females, seeing that the parents have 

 first to be aroused from their lethargy caused by hibernation, — the eggs deposited, 

 larvfe hatched and fed, and the pupa stage got through, before the said females could 

 appear. They may have been^out several days before, as the locality is nearly ten 

 miles from my house. 



My experience (about 45 years) with F. rufa does not agree with tlie writer's 

 remarks on the periodical desertion of its nest. The nest from which my 

 observations were made has been in existence for the past ten years to my 

 knowledge, how much longer I cannot say ; the extreme west side of it has been 

 given up in consequence of receiving the beat of the weather, causing the material 

 composing that part of the nest to decay ; the extension, not separation, has taken a 

 north-easterly direction. I should think that this hillock, old and new, would, at 

 its base, measure forty feet in circumference. A new colony within a hundi-ed yards, 

 would, I feel certain, not be permitted by the old one. I visit the nest in my 

 country rambles, sometimes three or four times in the year, and season after season 

 I have found the inhabitants of the old colony strengthening their numbers by 

 bringing home F. rifa from a new community that has been trying to start a sepa- 

 rate habitation. Some twenty years ago (August, 1877) I knew of a similar colony 

 which existed for several years ; I believe the destruction in that instance was by the 

 gamekeeper, who took all for feeding his young pheasants that were hatched at the 

 breeding station* ; there must be a cause for the periodical desertion of the nest, or 

 supposed desertion, and I would suggest that the space between the old and new 

 nest has been caused by the gamekeeper or bird-fancier turning over the contents 

 of the nest in search of so nailed " ants eggs," in reality the pupae, or by the same 

 operation being performed by a bird of some sort ; I have known a woodpecker 

 consume a small colony, in winter, by daily visits. — G. C. Bigneli, Stonehouse, 

 Plymouth : Juli/ 14,th, 1897. 



* The material of which the nest was composed was removed with the ants, and a note by 

 me on the same nest entitled, " F. rit/a strengthening its nest by taking workers from other 

 uests," will be found in Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. xvi, pp. 267—8 (May, 1880). -G. C. B. 



