FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB. 43 



From thence we reached a spot where some enterprizing parasol 

 ants had started a nest. The nest was soon dug out of its recess 

 in the earth near a drain and looked not unlike a very mouldy 

 dutch cheese in size and shape. It was broken up and one or 

 two specimens taken including the big-headed fellows, who with 

 fiercely snapping jaws always come to the front when their home 

 is attacked. One of them cut through a piece of stick presented 

 to it, which in size was at least half the thickness of its own 

 body. But this nest did not contain what Mr. Carr desired so 

 much to shew us, and after duly destroying it and scattering the 

 fungus beds and digging in the soil around it, we proceeded to 

 another. Here we were more successful, and Mr. Carr, at the 

 risk of the severe bites of the enraged insects, boldly took up the 

 nest with his bare hands. In its centre was a big helpless- 

 looking ant, a very Goliath amongst the others, rather larger 

 than a bee, which so far as we could see was covered with parasol 

 ants of the very smallest size, and whose red bodies contrasted 

 strongly with the dark brown one on which they looked almost 

 like parasites. The insect's helpless appearance and its sur- 

 roundings decided the question in our minds that this was 

 undoubtedly the queen of Attn cephalotes and not Atta fervens. 

 In this nest we observed several ants engaged in busily removing 

 the white shroud in which the young ones pass their chrysalis 

 stage, and which was so ably described in the Journal recently 

 by our greatest local authority on parasol ants — Mr. Tanner. 

 Several other small nests were visited — never a large one, for 

 Mr. Carr takes care to destroy them as fast as they form, and 

 several more of the large helpless ants were found — each one 

 with smaller ones clinging to it — and onl}- one in each nest. 

 The trees w r ere also examined, and several species taken — among 

 them a reddish-looking fellow* with a buckler-like shield over 

 the head and thorax. This ant was found principally upon 

 a Bucare-Immortelle, although they were also present on 

 several other trees. Mr. Urich, who was the entomologist 

 of the party, identified these ants as belonging to the 

 cryptocerus genus. After awhile we came to another part 

 of the river, which here presented a dark and unhealthy appear- 

 ance. A closer investigation shewed numbers of fish on the sur- 

 face near the banks gasping faintly and many of them looking as 

 if they would like to desert their natural element. Mr. Carr 

 surmised the water had been poisoned and certainly it looked 

 like it for some of the fish were quite dead. Curious to relate, 

 however, the poison which was so disastrous to the finny inhabi- 

 tants of the stream, had no visible effect on a large species of 



Cryptocerus clypeatu?, Fabr. 



