of new Indian Ants. 107 



" Poona, June 10 to 12, 1830. — A good deal of rain fell between 

 the 10th and 11th of June, the first of the year, being, in fact, the 

 setting in of the S.W. monsoon. After the 12th, the moisture, 

 combined with the great heat, (heat alone being insufficient.) brought 

 into hfe myriads of insects of all kinds, which for months previ- 

 ously had been lying in the pupa state : colonies of ants, white, 

 black, and red, large and small, poured from their retreats in dense 

 columns, taking wing, and literally darkening the air. As in the 

 preceding year, birds of every description were in eager pursuit. In 

 an hour or two the volant power of tlie ants terminated, their wings 

 dropped off, and lay in such profusion on the ground around their 

 nests as to form a carpet, and the insects themselves were seen 

 hurrying away in every direction into concealment, or lying dead 

 upon tlie grass, having completed the term of their ephemeral exist- 

 ence. It W'Ould appear from the above dates that ants swarm at 

 different periods of the year, but whether or not the same nest sends 

 forth two colonies, or different nests swarm at different seasons of 

 the year, I did not determine." 



DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES. 



PLATE XIII. Fig. 3. 



3 a. Formica indefessa, neuter magnified. 3 b. One of the mandibles. 3 c. One 

 of the maxillae. 3 </. The lower lip and its appendages. 



Supplementary Note, read January oth, 1835. 



I take the present opportunity of exhibiting to the Society a gigantic specimen 

 of the Formica indefessa, an account of which was read some months since, mea- 

 suring ■i4ths of an inch in length. It is no doubt a female, and very many of them 

 are seen amongst the workers. I may here say with respect to the Termes belU- 

 cosus, Formica indefessa, and Atta providens, that I never'saw winged ants amongst 

 them, excepting at the time of swarming ; I believe, nevertheless, their communi- 

 ties to consist of queens, neuters, and males, the latter being wingless, unless at the 

 period mentioned. In an examination of very many nests of the Termites, I never 

 found a king shut up in the same chamber with the queen, as described by Smeath- 

 man, and I fully believe that a complete, patient, and philosophical investigation 

 into their ceconomy is still a desideratum. 



