( xlvii ) 



this particular case than I have, informs me that the associa- 

 tion of this particular ant with Coccid and fungus is constant. 

 It appears to me to be a point of some biological interest to 

 explain how equilibrium came to be established, even if the 

 fungus is not actually cultivated by the ants. Once the 

 fungus has got on to even one shelter — and it does so very 

 early — the ants by passing from one to another could hardly 

 avoid spreading it even if they tried to abstain from doing 

 so ; and they appear to take no measures to stop the spread. 



" One or two other questions I would like to put seem to me 

 to be quite pertinent. The first is whether Coccids which 

 are habitually associated with sooty moulds are usually ant- 

 attended ? There are ants of some sort on every tree here, 

 but the point is whether precise ants are known to associate 

 with precise Coccids which are at the same time habitually 

 covered with sooty moulds. I have asked Dr. Lamborn, 

 who thinks that ants are not thus associated. If this be so, 

 may it not be because the fungus has the mastery and leaves 

 nothing to the ants? Is the subsequent getting rid of its 

 secretion a physiological necessity to the inert Coccid, which 

 has come to be done in one of two principal modes — either by 

 a sort of symbiosis with fungi or association with ants ? 



" If then the fungus-growths be purely adventitious as Dr. 

 Perkins suggests, it is not improbable that the Coccid secretion 

 does not enter into its nutrition. If it does enter into the 

 nutrition of the fungus it would either be tolerated by the ants 

 from the ulterior motive of feeding on the fungus mycelium, 

 which, as I have shown, would tend to grow inwards, or it is 

 to them consciously or unconsciously a nuisance. The fungus 

 is then in a sense parasitising the ants ; and it is none the less 

 interesting in that. May it not have been in some such way 

 that fungus farming originated among the Ants and Termites ? 



" I fear I have asked too many questions, when after all 

 the onus prohandi lies here. I fear that my ideas on the 

 subject too are none too clearly expressed, and if my ento- 

 mology is weak I hope I may be forgiven for a lamentable show 

 of ignorance. I mean to go on with the inquiry however, 

 for I think it is really very interesting and that there is more 

 in it than may meet the eye." 



