136 Louis Peringuey's notes on 



I never saw the ants attending to the Paussi or seem- 

 ing to draw any nourishment from them. Still, the 

 Paussi seem to affect those spots where the eggs and 

 larvae are deposited, perhaps because they are the most 

 sheltered places. I feci the ants with sugar and sweet 

 biscuits. I have kept them for two months, and I still 

 have eleven P. lineatus alive, although the males are 

 apparently all dead. I never saw the females depositing 

 their eggs, but I think they may have done so in a 

 biscuit excavated by the ants. 



That the P. lineatus is not fed by the ants, among 

 which I always found it, seems to me to be proved by a 

 close observation of two months' duration ; still the fact 

 remains that I have not seen it in the act of taking food. 

 On one occasion I saw four on a piece of sweetened 

 orange I had put as food for the ants. Now this Paussus, 

 when in motion, always carries its palpi hanging at 

 right angles, and one of those four, — the only one of 

 whom I could get a full view, — had its palpi hanging in 

 the usual manner, but 1 could not detect any sign of its 

 jaws being hi motion. I should think that Burmeister 

 was right in calling them carnivorous insects, because 

 with the second lot of P. lineatus I placed five specimens 

 of the minute P. Linnei, Westw., and the day after there 

 was but one of them left ; that one was shorn of one of 

 its antennae, and died soon after I had removed it. 

 The box being so well closed that the insects had no 

 opportunity whatever of escape, I concluded that they 

 had been devoured by the P. lineatus. On a second 

 experiment, of two days' duration, three P. Linnei came 

 out unscathed, except one, who lost its fore leg. 



I afterwards separated five P. lineatus from the ants, 

 and left them without food for eight days, but I could not 

 detect any sign of their having suffered by their fast ; 

 they were, when exposed to the sun, as lively as those I 

 had left with the ants. 



These observations make me think that this Paussus 

 is merely tolerated by the ants amongst which it is found, 

 or perhaps kept as a pet, especially if one takes into 

 consideration that in one case only have I found three 

 specimens in the same nest, seldom two, and generally 

 one only. 



This species seems to have a wide range, as the Cape 

 Town Museum has in its possession two specimens cap- 

 tured in the Transvaal. 



