( ex ) 



march (not hunting but hurrying along a narrow pathway) 

 I found amongst the ants a Coprid beetle [probably an aberrant 

 Onthophagus, or belonging to an allied genus], which I was 

 informed by the Entomological Research Committee was quite 

 unlike anything they had in the British Museum. It was- — 

 so far as I remember — about half an inch long, black, highly 

 polished and flattened, with limbs closely fitting. It ran 

 along in the midst of the column, with ants all round it and 

 often hurrying over it. Sometimes it came near the edge of 

 the column (which was about six ants wide), and had it been an 

 involuntary inclusion in the army could easily have escaped, 

 but always went back again amongst the ants. It must 

 certainly have been myrmecophilous — a bold insect indeed 

 to attach itself to such ferocious friends ! This column was 

 a particular!}^ large one. "Wlien I noticed it first, on the 

 evening of July 18, 1910, it was crossing a pathway, and the 

 ants ran between walls formed of others standing as it were 

 on tiptoe with jaws widely agape. These walls are literally 

 made of a meshwork of ants with entangled legs — and 

 sometimes they roof over the line of march in the same way. 

 " At sunset, then, on July 18, the column of ants was pouring 

 across the road, coming out of a hole on one side and going 

 down a hole the other side. My notes, made at the time, 

 said- — ' I think every ant had a pupa, but not one carried a 

 larva.' It was in this column that I saw the beetle before 

 mentioned. On the morning of July 19, the column was 

 still streaming across in the same direction, and flowed con- 

 tinuously until 3 p.m., when the living walls had broken up, 

 and the column was formed of a few ants only without pupae : 

 by sunset they had all crossed over. But for at least twenty- 

 four hours (for I have no doubt whatever they had been 

 marching all night) they had been passing in a continuous 

 stream ! This must have been the occasion of a change from 

 one temporary camp to another. 



" The o Dorylus is a most objectionable fellow. In the 

 first place he uses the end of his long and heavy abdomen as 

 an extra leg with which to push himself along (after the 

 manner of a Carabid larva). In the second place he is 

 attracted by light and comes buzzing and banging round, and 



