New Nests of Ants hy Myrmecopliilous Colcoptera. 419 



Lomechusa strumosa, F. 



Normal host. — Formica sanguinca, Ltr. 



Wasmann found it in some numbers in one nest of 

 Formica ritfa in Dutch Limburg in May 1897, and a 

 single specimen with F. rufiharhis v. fusco-rufibavMs, 

 on May 14th, 1897. Sir Hans Sloane captured a specimen 

 on Hampstead Heath in 1710. Dr. Leach took one when 

 travelling in the mail coach between Cheltenham and 

 Gloucester about 1820. 



One got up and flew away off the sheet I was using 

 when examining a nest of F. sanguinca at Woking. 



Roger records that, on warm days one often sees Lome- 

 chusa out and walking about. 



Sahlberg caught it on the winsf. 



Wasmann remarks that although not double-hosted like 

 Atemeles, it often clianges its habitation. 



I have described and figured the copulation of this 

 beetle, and I found in my observation nest that a number 

 of specimens collected together outside the nest for this 

 purpose, and afterwards the $ ^ immediately entered the 

 nest. 



Father Wasmann has recorded that they collect together 

 at pairing time, and that he once found 63 specimens sit- 

 ting on the top of a nest, 6 pairs being in cop., and that 

 some days later they dispersed to other nests. 



I once found under a turf at Woking a small number of 

 sanguinca^ ^, two $ ^, a.ndsev evalLomechuscc, all evidently 

 about to move together. 



Father Wasmann has shown that the e^Sis of this beetle 

 are laid on the eggs of very young larvae of the ants, and 

 that the eggs are very like the ants' eggs and that the 

 larvae is at most only one or two days in the egg. 



The species of the genus Atemeles are, like Lomechusa, 

 true guests, being fed * and licked by their hosts ; they 

 differ, however, in being double hosted, that is to say, 

 their summer hosts are ants of the genus Formica, in 

 which nests their eggs are laid and their larvae bred, so 

 these ants may be called the larval hosts ; their winter 



* It is a very interesting fact, first pointed out by Father Wasmann, 

 that when an Atemeles desires to be fed, it not only asks an ant, by 

 tapping with its antennae, as does Lomechvsa, but it further imitates 

 the actions of its hosts, by stroking the side of the head of the ant 

 with its front foot. Any one has only to keep Atemeles alive to 

 satisfy himself on this point. 



