METEROCYNA. t; 



nest, some, like Lashm flnvus, often make "ant-hills," but 

 at other times retreat under a stone and make their 

 galleries there. I have no room to enter into any lengthy- 

 account of ant habits, as the ants are perhaps the most won- 

 derful of any insects, and their habits would fill more pages 

 than can be possibly given to them here ; but I must men- 

 tion one or two points in which they seem to differ from 

 those of any other Hi/menojitera. In their nests are to be 

 found various beetles, ants of other species than the maker of 

 the nest, a species of wood louse, various Jp/iides, and other 

 JJemipiera, &c. Some of these are never met with anywhere 

 except in or near ants' nests, and their relations to the ants 

 have long been a puzzle to naturalists and i-emain so ; that 

 they are not objectionable to the ants, seems clear, but of 

 what use they are is still obscure. Some insects, such 

 as the Aji/iides, are evidently brought in by the ants, and 

 kept for the saccharine matter which they emit, but the 

 myrmecophilous beetles hardly seem likely to afford much 

 enjoyment to the ants in this way, although in the case of 

 Chiiiger and other beetles which have tufts of hair, the 

 ants have been seen licking these .hairs as if some pleasure 

 were obtained from the process, also the ants have been 

 seen to feed. them. At any rate, these beetles exist n 

 ants' nests, some of them, like C/nr/^e/-, absolutely blind; 

 many of them so like the ants themselves in colour and 

 movements, as to be hard to distiuguish from them when 

 moving about together. Some nests seem to abound in 

 beetles, other have none or scarcely any. 



Formica sanguinea actually makes slaves of F.fusca and 

 its race cunicularia, going out and stealing the J pupiu 

 from the parent nest; but besides those who have been 

 thus kidnapped, there are species which live with others in 

 relationships at present unknown, as for instance Formi- 

 coxenus and Formica riifa. No one has found a nest of 

 the former, but it may frequently be found with rufa, and 

 has never occurred elsewhere; it has the eccentricity also 



