340 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton's Experiments 



incubated ethalion egg found a carrier. Thinking I might 

 have crushed the demodocus egg so much as to render it 

 unattractive by loss of contents I added another of the 

 same brood very shghtly crushed (in each case by pressure 

 of a pin-point). Tliis too was much examined but not 

 taken, and one ant picked it up and dropped it outside the 

 run. On my returning it, the egg was treated as before, but 

 eventually an ant carried it for about eight inches, then 

 once more deposited it outside. The Acraea eggs also 

 remained untaken all this time, though frequently ex- 

 amined, but, on my putting down two Pyrameis eggs 

 with a third of the same species crushed against them, 

 they (the Pyrameis eggs) were picked up by a small ant 

 and carried forward to the station. A further batch of 

 two or three Pyrameis eggs was ignored, and the next 

 half -incubated ethalion egg was examined by two or three 

 ants and neglected. Whether these eggs would have con- 

 tinued to be neglected I am unable to say, as I had now 

 to discontinue the experiment. 



This description gives no real idea of the tediousness 

 of the experiment, which lasted about two hours. In 

 almost every case the egg was passed over by far more 

 ants than noticed it, and the difference between the eggs 

 of the Papilios and the Acraeas on the one hand and those 

 of the two Nymphahnes on the other, was that whereas 

 the former were very frequently examined they remained 

 untaken to the end, while the Cliaraxes and Pyrameis eggs 

 were picked up and carried by the first or nearly the first 

 ant that stopped to notice them. 



I should say the C. ethalion eggs found carriers more 

 readily than Pyrameis eggs. I was unable to find, for the 

 broken-egg experiment, the half-incubated hippocoon egg 

 I had used previously. 



In view of Acraea eggs having been accepted the day 

 before yesterday, their rejection in this experiment re- 

 quires confirmation. 



[On leaving the ants I found a medium-sized cattle-tick 

 (Riiipicephalus sp.), and going back put it in the run. 

 Some ants ran over it without stopping ; one or two halted 

 and examined ; then one took it by the side and retiring 

 to the side of the colunm held it there, merely preventing 

 it from moving away, herself in meantime lying over on 

 her side. As the stream of ants went ceaselessly past a 

 number of its members — one at a time, two at a time, or 



