416 Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe on the Life History, 
given to them, Lomechusa will come and sit amongst, and 
crawl over, them. In fact, the beetle is always to be found 
where the ants are thickest, and then it becomes practically 
invisible; the reason being, as pointed out by Father 
Wasmann, that the light which is reflected from the 
concave sides of the thorax appears to the eye like the 
narrow back of an ant, and the rolled-up abdomen of the 
beetle reflects the light in the same way as the rounded 
abdomen of a fat ant. 
I was fortunate enough to observe the courtship of 
Lomechusa; as it has not been recorded before I took 
careful notes, and it is here described for the first time. 
I first saw it on the evening of May 19th this year, and 
subsequently noticed it on many occasions till June 9th. 
The and ? faced each other, touching their antennz and 
mouths together, and tapping each other quickly. The 
@ slowly sidled round to the back of the 9, touching her 
all the time with his antennz, the 2? moving convulsively 
the posterior part of her body ; the f tapped the posterior 
parts with his antennze and mouth, then pushing his 
head under the body of the ?, he raised himself on the 
tips of the front legs, and nearly standing on his head he 
bent the body right over his back and made desperate 
endeavours to meet the end of the female’s body, when 
she put up her tail, the posterior part of his body opened 
Fie. 1, Lomechusa strwmosa, in cop. 
and clasped hers like a hand and coition took place. The 
fis then carried hanging back in the air, or walking on 
the tips of his front pair of legs. They separated, and 
after caressing each other for a short time, the same 
process was repeated and copulation resumed. The pro- 
cess of copulation lasts about half-an-hour. I introduced 
several pairs in cop. into the bowl which contains my 
observation nest of Formica sanguinea ; when they separated 
the 2? at once entered the nest, where the eggs are laid. 
The only external difference in the sexes is that the 
antennz are slightly longer in the #; as the legs are not 
