( cxxix ) 



any tubes or sawdust, so keep only sizeable ones. There are 

 some grand Carabids — huge black fellows ! I did laugh one 

 evening. I was sitting out with one of my convalescents 

 from fever (a man who has ' seen life ' and knocked about all 

 over the world — spent two winters at Klondike in the first 

 days, etc. !), and he suddenly screamed like a woman on seeing 

 one of these black giants which had climbed up him ! I said 

 I had seen what I didn't suppose any one else had ever seen — 

 viz. him frightened ! ! Many of them have a dull white patch 

 on elytra. 



" I see a good deal of the ant Megaponera foetens here : one 

 is always coming across their long, solemn, slowly marching, 

 black processions — of any number from 50 to 500 or so. I 

 have never seen them carrying any other booty but the species 

 of Termite which abounds here — the one I have alluded to 

 before. It fives under ground and makes no hills — coming out 

 of little holes and running about, uncovered, in the open, to 

 get bits of live or dead grass which it carries down the holes. 

 Presumably in correlation with its open-air habits, its colour 

 is much darker than the large Termite whose hills I used to 

 destroy on the islands, and which devoured my house. This 

 one does not attack wooden posts, nor does it make covered 

 runs. Curiously enough, I have never seen any soldiers, which 

 is perhaps why Megaponera wages such ceaseless war against 

 it. This ant, when it goes out in column, wanders about look- 

 ing for the Termite holes. Immediately one is found there is 

 great excitement. The little bits of grass which sometimes 

 plug the entrance are dragged out, and the ants scramble down 

 the hole, very shortly reappearing with Termites, feebly strug- 

 gling, in their jaws. Sometimes there seems evidence of an 

 underground barricade, as ants come up to the surface with 

 bits of dead grass, etc., as if they were breaking down hastily 

 erected barricades ! One can almost picture the Termites 

 hastily throwing up partitions of grass and earth to keep back 

 the invaders ! 



" It would be interesting to know if the reason why Mega- 

 ponera is absent from some parts, is because this particularly 

 defenceless Termite is absent also ! ! 



" There is a peculiar Skipper in these parts which seems 



PROC. ENT. SOC. LOND., V. 191G I 



