233 



first. The pieces which I left to dry ap, aud which attracted them as 

 well as the fresh liver, were at last furrowed with channels more or less 

 deep. One of these ])ieces, which served for a score of days, was com- 

 pletely dug through into the center and only the exterior parts remained, 

 which were hardened and bored with holes. lu that condition ants were 

 crowding all over them always in as large numbers as at first. How 

 many thousands of ants worked at that piece to reduce it to that condi- 

 tion? Two or three thousand ants working day and night. When I 

 had shaken the piece to gather all the workers, these were replaced an 

 hour after by others; at 11 o'clock at night I found as many as at 7 

 o'clock in the morning, which proves that the work of the neuters does 

 not stop. The result of these observations, few as they are, seems to 

 determine tlie time of hatching out of the sexes, which seems to be at the 

 end of September and during the whole month of October. This hatch- 

 ing takes place, of course, successively like the coupling, contrary to 

 what occurs in most species in our country, whose coupling takes place 

 in the air, and of which each female becomes the founder of a new formi- 

 cary, while the males, becoming useless, die after having wandered aim- 

 lessly for a few days. Here, on the contrary, coupling takes place sub- 

 terraneously, and it appears that the male and female continue to live 

 in the same formicary, which increases indefinitely so long as nothing 

 of an unforeseen character happens to destroy it. 



Females lose their wings, of course, immediately after coupling, the 

 superior ones first, for I found several which yet possessed their infe- 

 rior wings. Their walk is slow, while males, preserving all their wings, 

 run very quickly without my having seen any showing signs of flying 

 away. It may possibly be different in Africa under the influence of a 

 warmer sun than we have in our temperate climate.* 



THE DIPTEROUS PARASITE OF DIABROTICA SOROR. 



By D. W. CoQUiLLETT, Los Angeles. 



Up to the present time but few instances have been recorded of 

 Coleopterous insects being subject to the attacks of Dipterous parasites. 

 In his first report as State Entomologist of Missouri, Professor Riley 

 records having bred the Tachinid, Exorista (Lydella) dorypJiorce Bailey, 

 from the larvae of the Colorado Potato- beetle {Doryphora lOlineata 

 Say), and in the fifth volume of the American Naturalist Dr. Henry 

 Shimer gives an account of the Dexid, Melanospliora diahroticce Shimer, 



* Mr. Bellevoye continued to gather these ants during the whole month of Novem- 

 ber. The neuters were a little less numerous ; there was a complete absence of males, 

 but the females, were always jireseut, aud he captured 203 of them from the first of 

 November to the 6th of December, only there were none with wings, which seems to 

 indicate that there was not another brood of males and females. 



