462 Mr. lioland Trimcii s notes o)i insects 



further set of specimens which I now exhibit, viz., the 

 pearl-like pupte (some free and others embedded in the 

 material of the ants' nest), specimens of the chains 

 made by stringing them together, and also some true 

 Ants, stated by Mr. Fisk's correspondent to have been 

 found in the same nest. 



Quite recently, on visiting the Zoological Department 

 of the British Museum of Natural History, I was shown, 

 by Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Kirby, a chain of these 

 creatures, which had been sent from the Cape to Sir 

 J. Lubbock, and forwarded by him to the Museum. I 

 was also shown specimens of Guilding's Marf/arodes 

 formicarwn pupse from the West Indies, with which in 

 general structure and appearance the Cape examples 

 presented much agreement, but were obviously much 

 larger and of brighter tints. The British Museum 

 collection also contains specimens of a similar species 

 (even smaller than the West Indian one) from North 

 Australia. 



Thanks to a reference kindly furnished by Mr. Kirby, 

 I was able to consult Lansdowne-Guilding's original 

 account of his " ground pearl" {Margarodcs furinica )'um) , 

 read to the Linnean Society as long ago as 1827, and 

 published in vol. xvi. of the ' Transactions,' pp. 115— 119. 

 That well-known naturalist records that in the Bahamas 

 the insects occurred plentifully, and under the name of 

 "ant-eggs" were strung into necklaces and ornamental 

 purses. In Union Island Mr. Guilding collected a box- 

 full, kept them in the moist marly soil in which they 

 were found, and soon observed insects issuing from 

 them. The spots of soil whence he took the specimens 

 were about stones, under which Ants had established 

 their nests, and he suggests that the insects were 

 parasitic on the larva3 of the Ants. Guilding's figures 

 of the insect produced from the " pearls " have much of 

 the appearance of a Coccus, except that the fore legs are 

 shown as very strongly recurved and evidently raptorial. 

 According to the author's account JManjarodes has no 

 mouth, and it occurs to him as not unlikely that it 

 obtains nutriment by suction through a foramen in each 

 anterior claw. He hesitates to assign the insect to any 

 known order, but Burmeister (Handb. der Ent., ii., 

 p. 79), and Westwood (Introd. M. Class. Ins., ii., p. 449), 

 agree in placing it among the Coccidce. Burmeister, 



