SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH MYRMECOPHILOUS COLEOPTERA. 349 



to make corrections in ink on their copies of Hagen and Wevneburg, 

 will rejoice to find that Messrs. Friedliinder have provided them with 

 more respectable paper for the Staudinger-Rebel " Catalog," and that 

 ink corrections will be quite feasible. A considerable number of 

 misprints have been detected in addition to those already noticed here 

 — e.;/., on p. 159, " rcticntala " for reticulata, &c., and probably closer 

 study will reveal scores — perhaps hundreds — of others. But all who 

 have engaged in work of this kind will know how excessively difficult 

 it is to obtain perfect accuracy in dealing with such a mass of detail, 

 and will be prepared to be lenient toward mistakes of this kind — which 

 are really not numerous in proportion to the 50,000 odd literature- 

 citations which Dr. Rebel estimates the work to contain. The Index 

 (by Dr. A. Penther) seems carefully and accurately prepared. 



Of course every serious student of the Pabiearctic Lepidoptera will 

 have to possess this " Catalog," and all such are recommended to 

 obtain it at once, and to study it for themselves. — Louis B. Prout. 

 June 28f/i, 1901. 



On some experiments with Myrmecophilous Coleoptera, and an 

 observation nest of Formica rufa. 



By HORACE St. J. K. DONISTHOEPE, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



On April 2nd I went to Oxshott to take a nest of Formica rufa to serve 

 me as an observation nest. I found the ants "massing " in the sun 

 on the sides of their hillocks. I took a fair number of specimens, 

 some $ s and a portion of the nest and put them into a bag. On 

 reaching home I placed some of the debris; of the nest into a large oblong 

 glass vessel filled with mould at the bottom. The vessel stood on my 

 study table in a zinc tray, the outside of which consists of a zinc trough 

 about an inch and a half wide, and two inches deep, filled with water 

 The ants and the rest of the nest I placed in a wooden box connected 

 with the glass vessel by a piece of lead piping. As soon as as many 

 ants as I required had passed through the tube, I removed it, and 

 examined the remaining debris for queen ants, beetles, &c. I found 

 about 12 ? s and specimens of the following species of coleoptera — 

 Dinarda maerkeli, Notothccta Jiavipes, N. anceps, T/iiasopJtila amjulata, 

 (Jxi/jioda formiceticola, Leptacinus foriiiicctnrum, and Mi/njietes piceus, all 

 of which I introduced into the nest. In a few days the ants had got 

 all straight and built up a small hillock in one corner, to which they 

 have steadily added ever since, as I have kept them supplied with 

 pine-needles, &c., for that purpose. For food I gave them honey, 

 of which they are very fond, and living insects, and kept them from 

 getting too dry by spraying them with Avater when necessary. 



I now proceed to give some account of the experiments I carried 

 out, as well as of the movements of the beetles in the nest. I must 

 first mention that all non-myrmecophilous insects introduced into the 

 nest were at once attacked, however large, by the ants, and eventually 

 killed and devoured. This makes their behaviour to species always 

 found with ants, still more noticeable. 



Dinarda maerkeli, Kies. — When this species meets an ant it stand 

 still and raises the abdomen over the body, and if the ant tries to attack 

 it (which they often do) it pokes the end of the body into the ant's 

 face. The ant starts back and the beetle resumes its career. This is 



