THE FRENCH ALPS OF HAUTE SAVOIE IN JULY, 1920. 



43 



considerable pleasure that I joined Mr. Phillips at New Ross on Sep- 

 tember 17th, 1921, to attempt to obtain specimens of the sexes. The 

 result of our afternoon's work is fully dealt with by Mr. Phillips in his 

 paper, suffice it to say that we examined over forty nests of Stena)inim, 

 many of which contained between 50 and 100 workers. In some of 

 these nests we found males and dealated females, but no winged 

 females. 



I take it, therefore, that the marriage flights had taken place, and 

 that the males were either late examples, or those that had crept back 

 into the nests. My chief object is to bring Mr. Phillips's paper before 

 English myrmecologists and to give my own impressions of the habitat, 

 as the nests of Stenaiiniia may have been overlooked in parts of 

 England, 



The locality I visited with Mr. Phillips, known locally as Mount 

 Garret Wood, lies about a mile north of New Ross, and occupies for 

 some distance the almost precipitous rocky eastern bank of the River 

 Barrow. The vegetation is entirely native, mainly oak, with much 

 holly and bramble scrub ; it is an exceptionally dry and sun-baked spot, 

 and the ground is covered in places with .large fiat stones, derived from 

 the Ordovician rocks of the district. In places where the wood has 

 been cleared, nearer New Ross, numerous other species of ants were 

 found — Douisthorpea fiava, D. nigra, Formica /'/(«•«, Mi/rtnica rnr/inodis 

 and M. scahrinodis — but in the wood itself we saw but one nest of M. 

 riKiinodia and a single worker of D. mixta. These were, however, not 

 very close to the StenawiiHi. 



It might also be well to note, in view of the apparent carnivorous 

 habits of Stenaiiiina, that whereas the nests of all the species seen in the 

 clearing were tenanted by large numbers of the woodlouse, IHatyarthrus 

 Jidft'iiiaiisejijiii, none of this myrmecophilous Crustacean were seen in the 

 nests of Ste)ia)iniia. 



Mr. Phillips describes carefull}^ the nests that we examined, found 

 always under deeply embedded stones, each with its little central cham- 

 ber and radiating galleries. Owing to the tenacity of life exhibited by 

 this ant we were enabled to send a mixed colony alive to Mr. Donis- 

 thorpe, and as he reports that the ants have settled down in their new 

 home, it is to be hoped that many obscure points connected with their 

 life-history will be added by him to Mr. Phillips's narrative. 



The French Alps of Haute Savoie in July, 1920. 



By Lt. E. B. ASHBY, F.E.S. and Memb. Soc. ent. de Fr. 



Leaving Gex in the French Jura on July 4th I arrived in the 

 evening at Annemasse, where I put up for the whole of my stay at 

 the Hotel de France, which I can recommend, Anneiiiasse being a good 

 centre from which to work the surrounding mountains without 

 necessitating entering Switzerland. On the journey from Gex to 

 Annemasse I managed to escape being overhauled by the customs at 

 Bellegarde, which formality is generally unavoidable. 



July 5th. — This morning I wandered around Annemasse getting a 

 few Diptera, among them being a Tabanus sp., a I'espa sylrestris, the 

 beetle Hhai/oui/cha nnicnlor, and Ichneidiioii jjriniatoriiis, Forst. In the 

 afternoon I went up to Mornex on the Petit Saleve, a limestone moun- 

 tain overlooking the Lake of Geneva and the Juras beyond. The 



