PONERA. 69 



It has been suggested that its head-quarters are situated in Kent, 

 east of the Medway 28 , but this is hardly the case since as has been 

 seen it ranges from Cornwall as far north as South Shields in 

 Durham. 



According to Professor Wheeler 36 the similarity between our 

 species and Ponera atavia of the Baltic Amber is so intimate that 

 it is impossible to distinguish them by any satisfactory characters 

 a fact which emphasizes its antiquity. 



It is generally sluggish in its movements, and subterranean in 

 habits, forming its nests under stones, etc., but it is often found in 

 moss, when however it is no doubt in search of its food, which 

 consists of small insects and mites, etc. A female was captured by 

 Westwood 6 , attracted to pieces of meat laid in his garden as baits 

 for insects. 



It possesses the power of stridulating, the apparatus by which 

 it accomplishes this having been described and figured by Dr. 

 Sharp 21 . The dorsum of the third gastric segment is extremely 

 coarsely and remotely sculptured at its base, while in the 

 middle there is a band of very fine lines, quite unlike the rest 

 of the sculpture. Its colonies are always small, consisting of very 

 few individuals ; five or more dealated females may be present 

 rarely ergatogynes 35 and more rarely microgynes 34 occur, though 

 I am not aware of any captures of these two forms in Britain. 



Morley found a colony in August, 1903, at Charing under a stone, 

 which contained some twenty-five pupae, a lesser number of workers, 

 and a dealated female. Chitty 28 who recorded this, thought that 

 this was the first time a nest of this ant had been found in Britain, 

 but Lord Avebury 16 recorded in 1883 the discovery of a nest under 

 a stone, the community consisting of about twenty individuals. 

 Later, in August 1903, Chitty 28 observed a small deposit of pupae 

 and a few workers at Charing, and near Doddington a few workers 

 under a stone, with evident traces of very fine galleries drilled by 

 the ants in the earth. The following nests have been found by me : 

 July 22nd, 1906, when in company with Chitty, two nests under 

 stones at Charing which contained a number of worker pupae 28 ; 

 May 1st and 8th, 1910 two small colonies under flints at Box Hill 

 which contained five and three dealated females respectively, and 

 a small number of workers 37 ; May 26th, 1911 a small community 

 in moss at Box Hill with two dealated females and a few workers 40 ; 

 May 16th, 1913 two more colonies under flints at Box Hill with 

 respectively one and two dealated females and some twelve workers. 

 The nest with the two females consisted of a cell in which they 

 rested with a packet of eggs just beneath the stone, built round 

 with earth, through which long narrow galleries stretched in every 

 direction. 



The males and winged females are to be found in August and 

 September, and may be swept off herbage in the neighbourhood of 



