OBSERVATIONS ON THE MYRMECOPHILOUS COLEOPTERA. 89 



which the welfare of the colony will next year mainly depend, 

 is now assuming the imago state, and the old workers exhibit 

 an irritability not observable at other times. 



At the end of August or beginning of September, the col- 

 lector should resume his researches. Several of the species 

 found in the spring re-appear in the autumn, and two — Mono- 

 tonia angasticollis and conicicollis — are to be met with then 

 only. He that would succeed in the investigation of ants' 

 nests must be prepared to fail ; according to my experience 

 about one nest only in twenty contains beetles: during the 

 last three years I have tried upwards of a hundred nests, 

 which has involved the transport in some cases for miles of 

 no trifling weight of stones and bricks, for these are not to 

 be found in woods, but by dint of sheer perseverance I 

 have discovered within the metropolitan district by far the 

 greater proportion of the species known in France and 

 Germany to frequent the nests of Formica rufa. 



In France, I am informed, a most reprehensible plan is 

 practised of tearing the ant-hill to pieces, throwing it into a 

 sieve, and sifting it over a white cloth ; I presume that this 

 proceeding is to a certain extent successful, but I think that 

 every rightminded person will bear with me in condemning 

 such wanton destruction as totally unjustifiable, for sooner 

 or later the entire colony must miserably perish. A gentle- 

 man, with whom I once expostulated on the cruelty of this 

 plan, gravely assured me that he always restored the hillock 

 to its previous state, as though these industrious, indomitable 

 creatures heaped up sticks and stones without plan or order. 

 Would the confused mass of material he raised prevent the 

 first rains which fell from penetrating the nest, flooding the 



Maerkel says (Gcrmar, Zeitschr. f. d. Kntom. iii. 215) that "of all the 

 Myrmecophili this makes its appearance the earliest in the year, often, in 

 favourable weather, in the first days of March." 



