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



delay and were carried hither and thither a httle, but 

 finally brought to the main track and taken to a drive. 

 When I last noticed Himatismus it too was being dragged 

 along. I then put in eight Antestia variegata and eight 

 weevils. All were seized — it was impossible to see whether 

 one was preferred to the other — and carried along. 



I now went back to Column 1. It had moved on to 

 some extent, and a number of its members were busy 

 exploring, and apparently enlarging, a vertical hole in 

 the ground, out of which I saw them bring up three white 

 bee larvae. A number of large guards were stationed in 

 a mass over the hole, and a thin stream of ants passed 

 between these and the bank. On the other side the stream 

 was thinner still. I put an Antestia on each side. That 

 away from the bank was once or twice attacked half- 

 heartedly and was inspected by a number of passing ants, 

 but on the whole left alone. Very different was the treat- 

 ment accorded one of the bee grubs. I placed it beside 

 the bug, and it was at once seized and carried off, several 

 ants joining in. The bug continued to be ignored. The 

 other bug, however, had been seized and carried to the 

 mass of guards. One of these seized it, and straddling 

 over it carried it back the way it had come, and finally 

 disappeared with it into the hole in the bank. 



Returning to Column 2 I found the EpilacJma and 

 Mylabris still in the same place, and I was just in time to 

 see the last bug and the last weevil disappear into the 

 drive. I should have said that before I left, the Epilachna 

 had more than once escaped, practically unmolested, from 

 the ants, but that I had each time put it back. I now put 

 in five fresh Mylabris ampleciens and a smallish M. oculata. 

 Considerable excitement ensued amongst the ants, and the 

 beetles were being dragged hither and thither, when a 

 large reinforcement, including a considerable proportion 

 of the largest workers, emerged from one of the drives, 

 and, seizing the beetles, including the EpilacJma, carried 

 all along, often with a great deal of delay, into the opposite 

 drive. One beetle only withstood the attack, and that 

 was the original Mylabris amplectens, a very large speci- 

 men. It was attacked like the others, but relinquished, 

 attacked again and again, left, and so on, until at the end 

 it was not much nearer the opposite drive than it had 

 been before. The Amanris larva, the remaining Acraea 

 larva and the fly, which I put in once more, were treated 



