86 COLEOPTERA. 



The apathy evinced by our collectors, some of whom must 

 have been well aware of the success achieved by our conti- 

 nental brethren in the examination of ants' nests, appears to 

 me attributable to several causes. In the first place, the 

 major portion of the insects attendant on ants pertain to the 

 Bracltelytra, a group of Coleoptera almost universally neg- 

 lected in Britain, the investigation of which Stephens him- 

 self appears always to have postponed, de die in diem, alas ! 

 until too late, throwing them in, rudis indigestaque moles, as 

 mere ballast at the end of his works, although indicating 

 their true position after Necrophaga in his synthetical tabu- 

 lation. The example thus set was almost unexceptionally 

 followed : collectors pinned the labels in their cabinets in the 

 sequence in which they were presented to them in the " No- 

 menclature," in most cases omitting the JBrachelytra alto- 

 gether, and thus the existence of a group, reckoning probably 

 not far short of a fourth of our indigenous Coleoptera, has 

 been generally ignored. 



Another cause, to which the ignorance prevailing with 

 respect to our ants-nest insects may in a great measure be 

 ascribed, is the lack of that important, nay essential, element 

 of success in all research — an acquaintance with the modus 

 operandi. To supply this is one of the chief objects of the 

 present paper. 



The ants, to which the attention of myself and the two 

 congenial friends with whose names the reader will have be- 

 come familar in the " List of new species," had been exclu- 

 sively devoted, are five in number. 



1. Formica rvfa, L. (the Wood Ant). 



2. Formica fuliginosa, Latr. (the Jet Ant). 



3. Formica fusca, L. (the Ash-coloured Ant). 



4. Formica flava, De Geer (the Turf or Common 

 Yellow Ant). 



