134 Louis Peringuey's notes on 



captivity by the ants for any purpose, and I do not 

 think now that such is the case, as the following will, I 

 hope, show. 



I kept my glass cage in a rather dark room ; but if I 

 placed it in the sun the Paussi, which had previously 

 been sluggish in the extreme, suddenly became very 

 lively, perambulating the cage in the most excited man- 

 ner, moving their antennae very rapidly in a vertical 

 line, folding and unfolding their wings, trying a clumsy 

 flight, setting to clean themselves with their legs, and 

 invariably seeking shelter under some bean-pods that I 

 had put in the cage for the female ants to deposit their 

 eggs under. Then the disc of the elytra and the antennae 

 would assume a most glossy appearance. Yet, whenever 

 I placed the cage in the sun, the worker ants would set 

 to work at once to free the larvae. If at any time the 

 unwieldly and (to the ants) bulky Paussus approached 

 one of them, the ant, leaving off its work, would im- 

 mediately seize hold of it and try to pull it in 

 another direction ; the Paussus would then stop, bring 

 its antennae forward, and stretch out its legs so as to 

 find a better " point d'appui." Some of the other workers 

 would come to the help of their fellow, and tug vigorously 

 at the antennae, always rigidly pointed forward, until the 

 Paussus, feeling it could not keep its ground, would 

 start away at a rapid pace. Then the workers would 

 resume their work. But it often happened that the 

 Paussus, in spite of the ants, made straight for the place 

 where the larvae and eggs were sheltered, and, finding in 

 the pods a support that the glass surface could not 

 afford it, it would settle in the middle of the colony 

 in spite of the efforts of the workers ; these, after a vain 

 effort to dislodge the intruder, carried the larvae away ; 

 the Paussus would then remain motionless for days in 

 the same spot. 



I thought at first that the Paussi were feeding on the 

 newly-born ants, but closer and repeated observations 

 enabled me to conclude that the workers tried to drag 

 them away only for fear they should injure the delicate 

 and almost transparent newly-freed individuals. I often 

 saw the ants carry the young in their mandibles from 

 the direction taken by a fast-walking Paussus. I put 

 together six newly-born ants and two Paussi, and, though 

 the jelly-like creatures did not assume a black colour 

 and become perfectly developed until from fifteen to 



