MYRMECOPHILOUS NOTES FOR 1908. 283 



were bred in my F. san/iiiitwa observation nest in some numbers in 

 the beginning of the year, January to May. 



Mi/niiedonia hiiiiieralis, Gr. — When staying with my friend, Mr. 

 Willoughby Ellis, at Knowle, in May, this beetle was observed in the 

 greatest profusion in the Haye Woods. Though, of course, it is com- 

 mon and widely-distributed, and everyone who has investigated ants' 

 nests has found it, still I have never seen it before in anything like the 

 numbers it occurred here. Near one large nest a cart-track went 

 through the wood, and in this track the ^lyrwedonia occurred in every 

 crack and under every dead leaf, and also many of its larva. Every 

 here and there little heaps of dead ants were to be found, and these 

 kept being added to by the Myrmedonias with specimens they had slain. 

 The beetles could be seen hiding and pouncing on a solitary ant. 

 Thousands of the ants must have been killed in this way. I made 

 some notes on June 2nd of an ant in captivity killed by a Murmedonia. 

 The latter started the attack at 10 a.m., and at 11.55 it had bitten the ant's 

 head oii" and taken it into a corner to be devoured. It bit at the ant 

 all over, and when the ant was roused it always poked the tail into the 

 ant's face. When other Myrmedonias tried to join in, it pushed them 

 off with its tail. This specimen was a $ , as a (? tried to copulate 

 with it at 11.15. This it did not allow, but I was able to observe the 

 copulation in other couples. Copulation takes place in the same way 

 as I described^'' in Lo)nechtisa, that is, the ^ does not get on the back 

 of the $ , but bends the tail over the body and head to reach the end 

 of the tail of the $ . 



I had hoped to solve, with the help of Mr. Grosvenor, of the 

 Oxford Museum, the problem I have been working at for a good 

 many years now, namely, what is the chemical formula of the sub- 

 stance given oft" by jSlyrmeiJonia to protect itself from the ants? We took 

 some of the beetles round to all the chemists at the Museum, but they 

 were none of them able to recognise what the very strong pungent 

 smell is that Mi/rmedonia excretes. Altogether our experiments can 

 only be described as negative, chiefty on account of not having enough 

 beetles with me. (This was a great pity, as at the time I might easily 

 have obtained a very large quantity instead of the 60 or 70 I took 

 away. My friend, Mr. Ellis, seemed to thuik it would prevent them 

 occurring another year. With this I personally disagree, as when a 

 beetle occurs in such numbers one can make very little difterence by a 

 single day's collecting.) Still, it may be as well to record here what 

 they consisted of. A llask containing the beetles, Avith a tube to let 

 air in, was connected with two large glass test-tubes, in which we tried 

 water, alcohol (dilute and absolute), and cotton-seed oil, for absorbing 

 " smell." A suction pump being fitted to the last tube to draw the 

 air from the "beetle flask" through the two test tubes. 



H(»iiulota parallela, Man. — This little species was observed by 

 Professor Beare and myself with F. nifa at Nethy Bridge. 



Bi/t/iiniis (/labrattifi, Rye. — Mr. W. H. Bennett captured it this year 

 with its usual ant, Ponera contravta. 



Coccinella distincta, Fald. — On May 31st, at Bewdley, I pointed 

 out specimens of this "lady-bird " to my friend, Mr. Ellis, which were 

 crawling out of a nest of Formica rnfa, and we subsequently found a 



* Transs. Ent. Soc. LotuL, 1907, pt. iv., p. 416. 



