NOTES ON THE CAPTURE OF CLAVIGER LONGICORNIS MULL. 291 



believes the ant thej' were found with was Fornnra fnxca, subsequent 

 events, however, have proved this not to be the case. 



On May 1st this year Walker found another specimen and shortly 

 afterwards Collins took two more, the host in each case being L. niger. 

 Walker records these captures in a note entitled — " The Host of 

 Clavujer longicornis, Miill., in England." This is rather misleading, 

 since as will be seen shortly, the normal host is here, as elsewhere, 

 L. iiDihratiis, or its sub-species L. iiii.rtiix. On May 14th Walker kindly 

 took me to his locality and we visited all the ni(ier nests in the neigh- 

 bourhood, without result. On May 16th I went to Box Hill, in 

 Surrey, where I knew Lasius muvtiia to occur, and on finding a nest I 

 was at once rewarded b}- the capture of three specimens of the Clavif/er. 

 (The same myrmecophiles live with L. ini.ctits that are found with L. 

 uwbratHi^. I took the rare Acari, Traclnjuropoda bosturki, Sphaerulaelaps 

 holothyroides, and Autennophortm uhluianni, which I have before found 

 with L. iiiiibratus in other localities in England. Janet records the 

 same species with L. vii.vtits.) The colony was situated in the deeply 

 embedded root of a tree stump, part of which broke off when I was 

 working at the nest, and this I left as a reserve. On May 17th I went 

 to Oxford again, and hunted with Collins in the ni;jer nests there. As 

 before no Claci/jer turned up, but I found a colony of L. innbratus. 

 The nest was situated in a bank, the ground being so stony that it 

 was impossible to dig it up, a 2 with three wings (one of last year's 

 brood), and a few ^ ^ only being exposed. On May 23rd I again 

 visited my viixtiis nest at Box Hill, but found that the ants had 

 deserted the remains of the tree root. Patient search produced two 

 more colonies of L. inixtns in deeply embedded tree roots, in both of 

 which a ini.ctns deillated ? occurred. In the smaller colony three of the 

 Claviijer were found, but in the other, a large and very populous one, 

 over twenty specimens were present. 



The deeply embedded roots correspond with Scbmitz's deeply em- 

 bedded heavy stones, the reason being that L. umbratus and L. nuxtus 

 are much more subterranean in their habits than L. t^artts or L. niger. 

 I have heard from my friend Bedwell, to whom I had explained my 

 method of finding this beetle at Box Hill, that he took twenty 

 specimens in one nest on June 7th. 



On September 7th I was again at Box Hill to try and obtain <? (? 

 and winged 2 ? of the ant. In this I was successful, and also saw 

 six specimens of the Claingcr. It is thus clear that though C. longicornis 

 occurs sparingly with L. niger in Oxfordshire, should a colony of L. 

 7iiiibrcitns or L. )iii.vttis be found there, which could be properly investi- 

 gated, the beetle would no doubt be found as freely as in Surrey. 



I may mention that I introduced live specimens of this Claviger into 

 my L. vmbrahis observation nest last May, and that they are still alive 

 to-day (November 27th). They now generally sit on the body of a L. 

 fuliginofius 2 , which has been accepted as a queen by the unibratita ^ ^ . 



On my last visit to Box Hill, on September 28th, the beetle was 

 not observed, but two specimens of a beetle larva unknown to me, 

 were found in a L. tni.rtiis colony, which may be Claviger larvfe. One 

 of these I brought home and introduced into my nest, where it was not 

 attacked by the ants, but died in two days, the other I put into spirit 

 and sent it to my friend Father Wasmann, and he tells me it is 

 ■unknown to him and that it may possibly be ('. longicornis, and as the 



