( Ixxv ) 



with the typical forms for comparison ; also a dark aberration 

 of Ccenonympha pamphilus, Linn., taken in the same district 

 in 1903, The district is on the whole noted for light and 

 brightly-marked forms, and the exhibitor said that he did not 

 pretend to offer any explanation of these casual aberrations, 

 one at least of which — the A. suhsericeata — seemed to be 

 absolutely unique, so far as is at present known. A very 

 few eggs, only eight, he believed, were obtained from the A. 

 marginepunctata, and three of the larvse fed up rapidly, and 

 produced moths on September 5th and 6th, the remaining five 

 hibernating. The three were exhibited with the parent, and 

 though slightly darker than normal, are by no means extreme 

 forms. 



Mr, H. W. SouTHCOMBE communicated a note on the forma- 

 tion of a new nest by Lasius niger, the common black garden 

 ant, as follows : — 



" A number of fertile queens were captured on the 28th 

 July, 1905, They were running about in a large open space 

 in front of a railway-station, and both there and in other 

 places were hurriedly searching for some crevice in which to 

 hide, and as hurriedly scurrying out again, 



" I afterwards enclosed some of these queens in a perforated 

 box having holes of a size which permitted the small ants to 

 pass through and offered them to some wild nests, and also to 

 a captive colony which possessed no queen. In each case they 

 were torn to pieces, the members of the captive nest showing 

 remarkable fury in attacking the offered queen. 



" It would thus appear that the queens which fall a prey to 

 the birds, sometimes in vast numbers, stand in danger if they 

 escape the birds of meeting a worse fate at the hands of their 

 own kind. 



"The remaining captive queens were kept in a box with 

 glass top, perforated sides for ventilation, and a porcelain 

 bottom, being at first supplied with a wet sponge under which 

 they congregated during the hot weather. Food was supplied, 

 but I never at any time saw them feeding, although they may 

 have done so. Afterwards they were supplied with damp 

 earth, in which they burrowed and spent the winter. 



" In the middle of May 1906 the little colony began to die 



