ON THE CAPTURE OF FORMICARIOUS HISTERID^. 293 



created. Small lepidopterous larvte which fall into the nests of 

 tlie ants have their moments numbered, for a dozen ants or more 

 will join and attack a small caterpillar half an inch long. 

 HetaBrii are not parasites in the proper sense of the term, but 

 they are truly insectivorous in the imago state, and possibly so 

 when larvae, and this is probably true also of all the members of 

 the family. Hister piistidosus, Gene, has been recorded as 

 burrowing in a field after the larva of an Agrotis ; Mr. Gorham 

 has discovered that the imagos of Saprinus virescens, Payk, feed 

 on the larvae of a phytophagous beetle ; Mr. Stevens found, at 

 Norwood, the rare Teretrius picipes, Fab., hunting for Lyctiis in 

 the holes drilled by tlie latter in an oaken fence, and I have 

 several times seen TrypancEiis methodically chasing Platypus. 

 And so probably the Histers and Saprini which are sometimes 

 considered stercoraceous species, are really attracted by the 

 insects which have congregated on the highway before them. 

 But of the larvae of these things we want knowledge. 



As a rule, there are but one or two specimens of Sternoccelis 

 to be found in one nest, but I have taken as many as seventeen 

 S. arachnoldes, Fairmaire, at Tangier together, and at Cintra in 

 Portugal I once obtained twenty -two S. hispanicus, Brisout, from 

 one colony of ants. These two species are found in sandy places, — 

 places where the sand will run sometimes into the galleries of the 

 nest when the stone is removed, as easily as from one division of 

 an hour-glass to another. Yet the majority of the North-African 

 species occur on the clay. Sternoccelis acutangidus, Lewis, is a 

 genuine clay -species, and on the 8th April last I turned over a 

 stone, measuring about ten inches across each way, which was 

 firmly embedded in the clay, and found in a crevice of it several 

 of the beetles. There was a small nest of Aphmiog aster, and in 

 the crevice about an inch long, a mass of larvae had been stored. 

 Here I saw at first one, then another, and by using a straw 

 extricated seven more, which, till then, were concealed beneath the 

 larvae. 



Eretmotus is not so persistently attached to ants as Sterno- 

 ccelis. I took three specimens near Tangier, on April 5th, from 

 under a small stone where there were no ants, and one of them 

 was immature, so I think it likely their period of pupation is 

 undergone away from ants, nor can anyone assume that in the 

 quiescent state they can be dependent on them. Again, on 



