18 Mr. H. Donisthorpe on 



it into its mouth, but immediately took it out again, and 

 threw it down in evident disgust. It would have nothing 

 more to do with the beetles. 



Finally my three species of lizards {Laccrta viridis, 

 Laccrta muralis v. tiliguerta, and Lacerta agilis) would 

 never touch Clythra. 



In the Ujitomol agists' Becord (for 1900, p. 174) I stated 

 that I considered Clythra qiiadri-punctata to be a mimic of 

 the lady-bird, CoccincUa distinda, which also lives in nests 

 of Formica rnfa ; and in my paper on " Cases of Protective 

 Resemblance, Mimicry, etc.," in our Transactions (Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. Lend. 1901, part iii, p. 307), I suggested that 

 Clythra might be distasteful on its own account, and thus 

 provide Jin example of Mlillerian mimicry. This we now 

 see is the case. 



To return to the covered eggs. We have seen that the 

 $ beetle sits on a branch above, or near, a nest of Formica 

 Tufa and lets fall the egg. I therefore dropped and placed 

 eggs into the case which contained my nest. They were 

 always removed by the ants and taken into the nest. On 

 June 23rd I placed a covered egg near my nest which I 

 watched for some time. I have written in my note-book : 

 " At 5.30 an ant took up the covered Qgg, and carried it 

 into a gallery, returning immediately Avithout it." 



My experiments therefore have established this new and 

 interesting point — that the ants carry the egg in its case into 

 the nest. In carrying the egg into the nest, the ant may be 

 under the impression that she has a bit of vegetable matter 

 that will be useful in the nest, as other vegetable remains 

 are ; or she may tliink she has something different, but still 

 a useful and normal addition to the nest. It seems highly 

 probable that, were the beetle a pernicious and parasitic 

 addition to the nest, the ants would ere this have learned 

 to discriminate the egg as something undesirable. That 

 she does take it in, under Avhichever of the impressions we 

 have suggested, leads to the belief that the beetle is an 

 inhabitant of the nest that is useful to the ants. In what 

 way, we probably have no material for a conclusive 

 opinion. It may be that its food is that portion of the 

 vegetable material of the nest which has served its purpose 

 to the ants, and which by inripient (or completed) decay is 

 liable to be a danger to the communit}', or at least to clog 

 the highways. 



I kept some of the covered eggs in boxes, and bred some 



