on the Bionomics of Southern Nigerian Insects. 445 
the nests. The larvae wander about in the run of the ants, 
soft, unprotected things, that cover themselves with 
excreta much like Criocerid larvae. The ants seemed to 
have a liking for this and fed on it, without at all molesting 
the larvae. They pupate in queer little cocoon-like things 
and more or less gregariously. 
April 28, 1918—When he [Mr. H. N. Thompson, 
Director of Forests] returns I am going for a week-end 
to one of his forest reserves, where I found the Milichia 
larvae, and can find many other good things too. 
2. Milichia farquharsom. Collin, sp.n. (p. 514). 
[The “ haunting flies,” referred to below as “ absolutely 
guaranteed,’ consisted of 5 2, evidently captured on or 
around Cremastogaster ants’ nests in May, 1918.] 
Feb. 4, 1918—There’s a little black and extremely 
active Dipteron that haunts one of my trees and on it 
the huge Cremastogaster nest the inhabitants of which never 
seem to rest day or night. These little flies, in quite 
considerable numbers, alight on the carton of the nest, 
dodge about among the ants, and are always at it. Yet 
I’ve never been able to find out what they are after! A 
Cremastogaster nest is no place to sit down at, till one 
finds out—it is up a tree as it happens. But I’ve stood 
on a ladder till my legs ached without success. They 
aren't there simply for the fun of the thing I know, but 
that’s all of their ways that ('d care to dogmatise about, 
and it’s not very helpful. 
May 28, 1918.—I told you I may possibly have sent 
Myrmecophilous Diptera whose exact doings I have not 
yet cleared up, but which haunt the nests of Cremastogaster 
instead of the real mendicants. By this mail I send a 
small number of absolutely guaranteed mendicants as 
well as a few of the others, also absolutely guaranteed. 
I know of still more Diptera closely related to these, and 
I find that the Cecidomyid occurs here also. I will write 
fuller notes later. 
3. “ Mendicant”’ Milichidae and Mimetic Ant-flies. 
[The habits of these flies were described by Farqu- 
harson in Proc. Ent. Soc., 1918, pp. xxxili, xxxiv, xl. 
The specimens sent in illustration and captured between 
Dec. 23, 1917, and Jan. 26, 1918, included three dis- 
tinct species (at first only two were recognised, «bid., 
pp. xxx, xl) described by Mr. Collin on pp. 512-14, viz. 
Milichia proectes—1 3; M. prosaetes,—1 3, 1 9; WM. 
TRANS, ENT. SOC. LOND. 1921.—ParRTSs III, Iv. (JAN. 22) G@ 
