28 



" Eambodde, Ceylon, March 24, 1858. 

 "W, Spence, Esq., London. 



" Dear Sir. — When at Madras, a few weeks ago, my friend the Hon. Walter 

 Elliot showed me an entomological sketch, a copy of which I beg to enclose, asking 

 me what the insect represented was. There can be no doubt that it is a Dorylus, and 

 of great interest, as it represents two sexes, and as Mr. Elliot has observed their do- 

 mestic habits. With regard to the latter, Mr, Elliot states that a couple of years ago 

 he found a large society of these insects at Collenada, near Coringa, north of Madras, 

 at about 17° N. L. They lived in the manner of ants, under the stone foundations of 

 a house built on loose sand, within half-a-niile of the sea-coast: the society was very 

 numerous. Mr. Elliot brought away a number of the insects, and had a drawing 

 made of them by a native draughtsman : the encloserl sketch is a copy of it, also made 

 by a native draughtsman. [The drawing represents the male insect of the natural 

 size and in different positions, with magnified details of the antennae, legs and geni- 

 talia ; also the worker of the natural size, and magnified with details, and with the 

 larva and pupa]. There can be no doubt that these insects are closely allied to the 

 social ants. The difference in size of the male and the worker is very remarkable. 

 The female remains still to be discovered : still I feel confident that the enclosed 

 sketch and Mr. Elliot's observations will interest you as much as they have interested 

 me, and will be generally considered as an acceptable addition to the natural-history 

 of the genus Dorylus." 



Mr. Thwaites, by whom Herr Neitner's letter was transmitted to Mr. Spence, adds 

 that "it is very interesting to find Shuckard's conjecture that Typhlopone would prove 

 to be of the Dorylus family verified. Shuckard's paper on the subject is in the 

 ' Annals of Natural History' for 1840: his idea of its being a parasite, is, however, 

 certainly disproved by this discovery of Mr. Elliot." 



Mr. Westwood added that Mr. Shuckard, in his 'Monograph on the Dorylides,' 

 referred to by Mr. Thwaites, had suggested that Typhlopone was cmnposed of females 

 of Labidus, and had consequently removed the former from the family of the ants, 

 considering the Dorylides as an osculant family between the MutillidiE and Formicidge, 

 whereas he (Mr. Westwood), in the Arcana Ent. i. 73, had shown Typhlopone to 

 belong to the family of the ants, and had considered the Dorylides as a section of the 

 FormicidsB, doubting, at the same time, the supposed sexual connexion between 

 Typhlopone and Labidus. 



Mr. Smith observed that the communication was certainly very interesting : Dr. 

 Savage had, however, to his own satisfaction, settled the relationship of Dorylus some 

 years aj^o. In the ' Proceedings of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ' for 1850, a com- 

 munication from Dr. Savage stales, that he found in Africa a number of specimens 

 of Dorylus in company with a new species of Anomma, "A. rubella, Sav.' ; the latter 

 he considers to be the workers of Dorylus, yet, notwithstanding this opinion and 

 the details given, Mr. Smith expressed his doubts of there being any specific con- 

 nexion between these insects; they were not even found in a nest, but upon the 

 ground, the Dorylus being mixed with a procession of Anomma. Although great dis- 

 parity in the size of the sexes of some species of ants was well known, no instance of 

 the male so greatly exceeding the worker had come under his notice, and in India 

 Dorylus was common, whilst Anomma has not yet been found. Mr. Smith was far 

 more inclined to adopt the opinion of Dorylus being the male of Typhlopone, but he 



