96 THE entomologist's record. 



Plati/aythiKs. Standen goes on to say that Hardy has often found it 

 in the burrows of wood-boring beetles. I trust it will be understood 

 that I am not casting any doubt on the fact that it has been found in 

 Scotland, but I do not believe that the small white woodlice seen by 

 Hardy in beetle burrows were Plati/arthnin at all. It would be very 

 easy for anyone (especially " without knowing its name, or the 

 significance of its association with ants," as Standen says) to mistake 

 other small white woodlice for it. 



MYRMECOCHOROUS SEEDS. 

 Centaurea cyanus, L. — When staying with Crawley, in July, at 

 Seaton, in Devon, he called my attention to the fact that in his garden 

 the seeds of the blue cornflower were collected by ^ ^ of Myrmca 

 rai/inodis and carried to their nest. The nest, was situated just near the 

 front door, and the ants brought the seeds from quite a long distance. 

 Sernander,^' in his Monograph on the European Myrmecochorous seeds, 

 records that on August 20th, 1898, at Tostero, in Sweden, he saw a 

 number of F. rufa carrying these seeds, and that they brought them 

 to the nest from a distance of 27m. These seeds possess an elaiosome, 

 which attracts the ants, and belong to his Amberboa-Type^"'. He 

 subsequently carried out experiments^" with these seeds, and found 

 that when the elaiosome was removed, they were not nearly so 

 attractive to the ants. 



FUNGOID GROWTHS. 



In a former paper^' 1 recorded that I found a colony of Leiitotliora.r 

 acervontm, at Rannoch, all the ants of which were covered with a 

 fungus, and I referred to Wheeler's^" paper on ants infested with 

 Labonlbenia. Professor Wheeler has now kindly sent me specimens of 

 Lasiiis nvjer var. nen-niger infested with Lahonlhenia fonincaruni. My 

 Leptothorax, which I unfortunately lost, had a somewhat similar 

 appearance, but were much more thickly covered with the fungus. 

 On August 11th, at Weybridge, when I had the great pleasure of 

 Professor Wheeler's company we found two colonies oiLauns iimbratiis 

 var. iiii.vto-tiinbratus, very many of the ants of which were infested with 

 a curious dark brown warty growth in patches on parts of the body 

 and legs. This Wheeler said he thought was a fungus unknown to 

 him. I took home a number of ants from one of the colonies and 

 established them in a plaster nest. The ants have done very well, very 

 few have died, and the colony is in a flourishing condition to-day, 

 February 14th. The fungus does not seem to have spread, but 

 rather to have decreased. I had some difficulty in finding specimens 

 much affected when I wanted to send some away alive. I hope to 

 make experiments with this nest this year. I sent specimens in 

 spirit to Dr. Jessie Bayliss Elliott of Birmingham University, who is 

 kindly investigating the matter for me, and subsequently the live 

 specimens mentioned above. Dr. Elliott considered the patches were 



« Kungl. Sveiiska. Vetensk. Handl, Vol. 41, No. 7, 1906, pp. 143 and 203. 



*^' loc. cit., p. 16. 



■"^ loc. cit., pp. 144-145. 



*"> Ent. llec, 1912, p. 5. 



^« Psyche, xvii., 1910, pp. 



