ANTS MYRMTCIDES 



159 



Fir 



. 67. — Phcidoh)ijcti>n laho- 

 riosiis, large and small 

 workers. East India. 



workers of the genera Eciton and Aenictus of the suh-family 

 Dorylides have, like the Myrmicides, two nodes in the 'pedicel.) 



This sub-family consists of about 1000 species, and inchules 



a great variety of forms, but, as they are 



most of them of small size, they are less 



known than the Camponotides, and much 



less attention has been paid to their 



habits and intelligence. Forel, until re- 

 cently, adopted four groups : Myrmicini, 



Attini, I'seudomyrmini and Cryptocerini ; 



but he is now disposed to increase this 



number to eight.^ They are distinguished 



by differences in the clypeus, and in the 



form of the head ; but it must be noted 



that the characters by which the groups 



are defined are not in all cases fully 



applicable to the males. The Crj^pto- 



cerini are in external structure the most highly modified of 



Hymenoptera, if not of all the tribes of Insecta. 



i. The Myrmicini proper are defined by Forel as having the 



antennae inserted near the middle, a little behind the front, of 

 the head, which has carinae on the inner 

 sides, but none on the outer sides, of the 

 insertions of the antennae ; the clypeus ex- 

 tends between the antennae. 



Certain genera of small European ants of 

 the group Myrmicini display some most 

 anomalous phenomena. This is especially 

 the case in Formicoxe^ius, Anergatrs and 

 Tomognathus. The facts known have, how- 

 ever, been most of them only recently dis- 

 covered, and some obscurity still exists as to 

 many of even the more important points 

 in these extraordinary life-histories. 



It has long been known that the little 

 Formicoxenus nitidulus lives as a guest 



in the nests of Formica rufa, the wood -ant; and another 



similar ant, Stenammct westivoodi, which shares the same life, 



Fig. 68. — Formicoxenus 

 nitidulus, male. (After 

 Adlerz. ) 



^ Ann. Soc. cut. Bclgique, xxxvii. 1893, p. 163. 



