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COLEOPTERA. 



Notes on Ants' Nest Beetles. 



By Edward W. Janson. 



In resuming this interesting topic, my object is, briefly, to 

 record the observations communicated to me by several 

 Entomologists, who have taken up with enthusiasm the exa- 

 mination of Ants' nests, and to whose industry it will have 

 been already remarked, in the List of New Species, we are 

 indebted for the discovery, during the year now well nigh 

 run out, of three additional Myrmecophilous Culeoptera, one 

 of them apparently new to science. On my own score I 

 have little to relate. The half-promised essay on the laws 

 affecting landlord ants and tenant beetles must now be de- 

 ferred sine die,— the rush made by certain metropolitan 

 collectors to the only localities accessible to me, and where, 

 by scrupulously abstaining from injuring either the ants or 

 their domicils, I had for three consecutive years tranquilly 

 carried on my investigations, — the diligence with which 

 they "ransacked every nook and corner/' and the ruth- 

 lessness with which they grubbed up and utterly destroyed 

 every nest, having brought my favourite pursuit to a 

 sudden, and, I must admit, somewhat unlooked for, 

 termination. 



In publishing my Ants' Nest paper in last year's Annual, 

 I was actuated by the desire of sharing with others the 



