354 Mr. G. A. J. ilothney^s notes 



without expressing many anathemas on this particular 

 species of ant. 



I have never found any swarming time for this species, 

 but have taken specimens of the winged female at 

 different times during the hot weather and rains, but 

 generally in May; but altogether I have not captured 

 more than about twenty specimens. From May 20th 

 to 24th, in 1879 to 1882, I captured each year a single 

 female sitting on a leaf of the mussel-shell creeper, 

 Clitoria ternatea, on the east side of the Chirya Khana 

 (aviary), Barrackpore Park, and in almost the same 

 position. What the attraction for this particular spot 

 was I could never make out, and there were no nests in 

 the immediate neighbourhood. 



Wherever you find this species in any numbers, if you 

 watch a few moments, you will see a mimicking spider, 

 Salticus, running about amongst the ants, which it very 

 closely resembles in appearance, much more so in life 

 than in set specimens placed side by side ; in my two 

 favourite nests I have seen numbers on the most friendly 

 footing with the ants, though I have never seen them 

 enter their burrows. I have never seen these spiders 

 doing anything, or capturing any fly or other insect, 

 though they are always very busy and in a great hurry ; 

 they are very quick in their movements, and are difficult 

 to capture, and, being very fragile, good specimens are 

 not very easily obtained. I have at times fancied I have 

 seen them imbibing some of the moisture from the bark 

 where it has been bruised or chafed, but I cannot be 

 certain ; they are evidently on a special footing with the 

 ants, and are, I should say, the only friends Pseudomyrma 

 has, with the exception of a sand-wasp, a new species of 

 Rhinopsis since described by Mr. Cameron, which also 

 very closely mimics rufo-nigra, and which, on first 

 observing amongst the workers, I took to be the male. 

 It is very active ; I have seen three specimens (but only 

 captured one), two at the nest in the Barrackpore Koad, 

 and one at the nest in the Park.* 



S. nifo-nigra appears to be fairly omnivorous, preying 



* It is perhaps curious and worthy of remark that a species of 

 Ampulex should so exactly mimic this ant and mix with it on 

 friendly terms, whilst another species, the handsome comjiressum, 

 should behave towards it in the somewhat overbearing and rough 

 manner I have elsewhere described. 



