NOTES ON THE BRITISH MYRMECOPHILOUS FAUNA. 15 



with ants, if not actually in the nests, their resemblance to the ants 

 protecting them no doubt from outside enemies. Some creatures only 

 pass their earlier stages in the nests, being always found at large in 

 the perfect stage. Finally there are the chance guests, which, though 

 not always occurring with ants, are very often found with them. The 

 myrmecophilous fauna, with the exception of the order coleoptera, 

 having been much neglected in this country, and such records as there 

 are being very fragmentary and scattered, I have endeavoured to 

 collect together all the available information published on the subject. 

 I also record for the first time my own captures, some of which are 

 new to this country, and my experience of the habits of the insects. I 

 would here especially thank Messrs. Buckton, Collin, Enock,McLachlan, 

 Michael, Morley, Saunders, Sinclair, Verrall and the Kev. 0. Pickard- 

 Cambridge, for kindly helping me in their different orders. 



Lacertilia. — Amjuis frai/ilis. — My friend Mr. A. J. Chitty, tells 

 me that he has frequently taken the slow-worm in the nests of Formica 

 fasca, at Dorington, in Kent. I think this is worth recording, as the 

 Auipliisbaena, a blind, snake-like lizard lives in the nests of the leaf- 

 cutting ants on the Amazons. In Guiana, a legless lizard, Coecilia 

 anniddsa (sometimes called the double-headed snake, its body being 

 equally thick at both ends), lives in the nests of the leaf -gathering ant. 



Hyjien'optera.— Fo;'/»?'e^/ac. — Sole)iopsifi fiu/ax, Ltr. — This small 

 robber ant lives at the expense of other large species of ants. Sir 

 John Lubbock says {Ants, Bees, and Wasps, p. 78), "It makes its 

 chambers and galleries in the walls of the nests of larger species and 

 is the bitter enemy of its hosts. The latter cannot get at them, 

 because they are too large to enter the galleries. The little Solenopsis, 

 therefore, is quite safe, and, as it appears, makes incursions into the 

 nurseries of the larger ant, and carries oft" the larvffi as food." Sharp 

 figures a nest of Formica fnsca with chambers of this little, ant in it 

 {(Jamb. Nat. Hist., Insects, pt. ii., p. 1B7). Wasmann records it from 

 Europe and North Africa with nearly all the larger species of ants 

 {Mi/rm. u. Term. Art., 1894, p. 162). 



Formicoxenns nitidnliis, Nyl. {Stenamma trestiroodi, aut.). — This is 

 another species found with larger ants. Sir John Lubbock {loc. cit., 

 p. 78) says, "The little Stenamma n-estiroodii, is found exclusively in 

 the nests of the much larger F. ritfa, and the allied F. pratensis.^* 

 Wasmann {Inc. cit., p. 162) gives the same two species as its normal 

 hosts, and Sharp {loc. cit., p. 160) adds F. comierens. Mr. Chitty and 

 I took it in a nest of Formica riifa, in the Blean Woods, in May, 1901. 



Formica sawjuinea, Ltr. — This is the slave-making ant, for which 

 purpose it chiefly uses Formica fnsca. Sharp {loc. cit., p. 150) says 

 that F. cnnienlaria and possibly L. jlarus, are also utilised by F. 

 scnvjiiinea in England. Their expeditions to attack neighbouring nests, 

 and methods of obtaining slaves are too well known to be entered into 

 here. Many other species of ants besides F. fnsca are found in their 

 nests. F. Smith writes in the Fnt. Annnal for 1868, p. 91, "I have 

 received from a young and most observant hymenopterist, a list of 

 species found in a nest of F. sannninea, at Shirley ;..../''. 

 _/'».scrt, common ; F. ni(/ra and F. jlava, several specimens; Taj>inoina 

 erratica, Mi/mica rmiinodis and M. scabrinodis, common ; M. lobicornis, 

 the workers very abundant, but only one female ; Leptothorax acevnmm, 

 all the sexes, abundant in August ; L. nylanderi, several specimens." 



