55' 



Saw-tiies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 



organisms, or make necessary the assumption that ants have a choice-making 

 and generally adaptive and teachable intelligence. Can ants dislocate in 

 time their reactions to stimuli? Are ants conscious? 



Curious interrelations of ants with some other animals have already 

 been referred to, as their care of plant-lice 

 (Aphididae) from which they obtain the much- 

 liked honey-dew, and their association with various 

 species of their own general kind in the rela- 

 tions of slave-maker and slave, host and parasite, 

 or host and guest. But still another kind of inti- 

 mate association with other animal species is com- 

 mon in ant-hfe, namely, that of the occurrence in 

 their nests of many different species of other in- 

 sects (as well as certain mites, spiders, and myri- 

 apods) which force their presence on their ant 

 hosts by cleverness or deception, or are tolerated 

 or even encouraged by the hosts. A few of these 

 arthro[)ods which inhabit ants' nests are true para- 

 sites or predaceous enemies, such as have to be 

 endured by ahnost all other insect kinds, but the 

 large majority of these so-called myrmecophiles do 

 (.\fter Brucs; natural little or no injury to their ant hosts, while a few 

 length one^ighth inch.) ^^.^^ ^^^^^^ .^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ advantages which 



they receive by the association. These advantages are (a) ready-made 

 subterranean cavities and lodging-places, defended against most enemies by 

 the fierce and capable owners 

 of the nest; (b) a pleasant 

 and favorable temperature 

 maintained despite the frigid 

 ity of the outer atmosphere; 

 (c) stores of vegetable food, 

 as seeds, etc., garnered by 

 the ants, and supplies of ani- 

 mal food, as bits of freshly 

 killed insects, etc., collected by 

 the hosts, as well as the lar\-a; 



Fig. 755. — EcHoxenia brevi- 

 pes, a rove-bcctlc (Staphy- 

 iinidx), which lives in the 

 nests of the robber-ant, 

 Eciton schmillii, in Te-xas. 

 Note absence of wings and 

 curiously modified shape. 



Fig. 756. 



Fig. 757. 



Fig. 756. — Termilogasler lexana, a rove-beetle 

 (Staphylini(K-c1, which lives in the nests of the 

 termite, Ettlcrmcs liiiereus, in Texas. (After 

 Brues; natural length i* mm.) 



and pupae, and even the dead fiq. -j^-j.—Ainismatis blatioidcs, a Phorid fly, which 



bodies of the ants themselves; lives in the nests of the ^n\, Formica fusco in 

 ,„ , . , ,. .J i- 1 Denmark. (.^ftcrMemert; thirteen times natural 



((f) the sweetish liquid food ^j^p) 



readily regurgitated by most 



ant workers in response to certain stimuli, and normally used for feeding 



the queens, males, and occasionally other workers: and finally (e) means 



