HYMENOPTERA — FORMICIDE. 293 
ys) 
violent discharges of blood. M. Lund has described a species of 
Formica (F. merdicola Z.), which constructs its nest upon the stems 
of reeds at some distance from the ground, or upon the spiny trunks 
of some kind of palm trees, using in its construction the dried excre- 
ment of horses and mules. Colonel Sykes also describes a species 
(Myrmica Kirbii S., Trans. Ent. Soc. vol.i.), which attaches its nest 
to the branches of trees and shrubs, composed of a multitude of thin 
folia of cowdung imbricated like the tiles upon a house, the upper 
folium covering the whole upper part like a skull-cap. The neuters 
throw the abdomen over the back, or, when alarmed, carry it in an 
upward situation: such is also the case with Formica elata Lund, 
which builds its nests on the trunks of trees, of earth mixed with 
leaves. Spix and Martius (feise, vol. iii. p. 1283.) mention a species 
of ant which forms its nest of minute hairs of the leaves of one of the 
melastomaceous trees; and also that F. molestans Zaér. (nana D. G.) 
makes a small globose nest of very minute hairs of plants in the oblong 
vesicles of Marieta, and in the inflated petiole of Tococa. 
A green ant, which inhabits New South Wales, was observed in 
Captain Cook’s voyage, which form their nests sometimes as large 
as a man’s head, in trees, by bending down the leaves and gluing the 
tips together (Hawkesworth, Account of Cook's First Voyage); and in 
the Saturday Magazine (No. 330. Aug. 26. 1837.), in an anonymous 
account of the habits of the ants of New South Wales, it is stated 
that a very small ant in the Bungo Forest builds nests of indurated 
clay, eight or ten feet high, whilst the large red and black ants (evi- 
dently species of Myrmecia Fab.) reside in nests scarcely raised 
above the surface of the ground. They are able, however, to bite and 
sting with great violence. 
Throughout the greater portion of the year the community consists 
only of neuters, but during the summer the males and females are 
produced in considerable numbers: these are detained prisoners in the 
nest for a certain time, until a favourable day, or more commonly a 
warm still afternoon, when they make their escape, and take flight in 
great swarms, flying into the air, where the union of the sexes takes 
place: soon after this the males perish, but the females, descending to 
the earth, immediately tear off their own wings and commence the 
establishment of a new colony, or are seized and forcibly detained by 
the neuters for the maintenance of the old habitation. They then 
commence laying their eggs, which are very minute (but increase in 
size previous to the bursting forth of the larva); and, according to 
