THK CONNKCTION RETWKKN ANTS AND LYC^.NID LAKY;*',. 89 



practical, as distinguished from the scientific, "British List" (ex- 

 cept, of course, for purposes of the market) any insect inchided in 

 the north-western extension of the Palcearctic fauna which could give 

 some evidence of British birth, and, as for those quasi-domesticated 

 species — Tineinac, lUattae, Xipti, the denizens of our houses and 

 granaries — I should deny them any nationality at all. These are the 

 gipsies of the Insfcta, vagabonds who have lost all trace of ancestral 

 home or pedigree, and who might have an equal place in all the 

 cabinets in all the countries of the world. 



Otherwise, each case must be judged on its merits, if I find Carahun 

 niiratns alive in Covent Garden, I should not, therefore, give it a place 

 among the Carabi of a British collection, but if, to revert to the 

 occasion of these obiter dicta, I should be so fortunate as my friend 

 Mr. Day, and discover Brontes under similar circumstances, the vacant 

 space over that name in my " British " collection of coleoptera would 

 no longer remain untenanted. 



The connection between Ants and Lycaenid larvae. 



By .T. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



The connection between ants and Lycaenid larvag appears only 

 recently to have become known to the greater number of British 

 lepidopterists, many of whom were somewhat surprised at the recent 

 discoveries of Messrs. Rayward and Frohawk, that the larvse of some 

 of our common native species of Lyctenids Avere accompanied by ants, 

 who milked them as it were much as they milk aphides. 



Our recent studies of the Lycsenids, and the search we have had to 

 make through the literature of the subject, has resulted in the dis- 

 covery of facts, which, recorded at odd times, and in little known 

 magazines, are really very remarkable and startling in their 

 character. 



The association of Lycaenid larvfe with ants is so wide-spread and 

 general a habit, that it is only our ignorance that prevents us from 

 asserting that the larvae of every true Lycaenid butterfly is accom- 

 panied l)y ants. The habit is recorded as occurring in every quarter 

 of the globe in Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia. 



The fact that ants were to be found in companionship with the 

 larvie of "blue" butterflies has been on record for more than 130 

 years, and was referred to by Esper and his contemporaries, but none 

 of them seemed to have guessed why they so consorted. In 1867, 

 Guenee discovered certain glands in the larva of Lamindes boeticus, one 

 in the centre of the dorsum of the 7th abdominal segment, and two 

 others, one on either side of the 8th abdominal segment, but he did 

 not connect the glands with the visits of the ants to the larvae. A full 

 translation of Guenee's paper is published (Nat. Hist. Brit. Butts., ii., 

 pp. 848-350). Similar glands were then discovered in 1869, by 

 Goossens, in Celastrina arijiolus, and a translation of his observations 

 are published in detail {op. n't., p. 445), but it was not until 1877 that 

 Edwards connected the glands with the ants, and discovered that the 

 ants visited the larvae of Celastrina psendar(jioliis, in order to obtain the 

 sweet secretion of the dorsal gland on the 7th abdominal segment. 

 The uses of those on the 8th abdominal remain somewhat obscure. A 



