MONOMORIUM. 99 



Gardens, and the writer took it in the Reptile House in the 

 Zoological Gardens 49 in 1894 where it is still in abundance and 

 in a baker's shop in the Earl's Court Road. According to Wakefield 12 

 it occurred in thousands in an hotel at Winchester in 1846. 



It evidently originated in some tropical country, Smith 15 sug- 

 gested that it came from Brazil, where it is common, and Linnaeus 1 

 gives its habitat as Egypt. Wheeler 50 when referring to its presence 

 in America points out that it does not nest out of doors except in 

 southern latitudes. In our own Islands it is confined to houses, 

 etc., though Morley 38 actually swept a specimen from a hedge- 

 bottom on July 2nd, 1897, at Wherstead, at least a mile from any 

 shop or habitation. 



Its colonies are often of vast proportions. Robert Service 37 

 mentions that he was called in to see this ant at home in a house 

 in Dumfries which it had overrun from cellar to attic. Its myriads 

 were past comprehension and in some places it distinctly coloured 

 the white wall with its hosts, and Bellevoye 32 who studied its 

 habits in his house at Reims computes that he captured in twenty- 

 four months, 1,360,000 workers, 1809 deflated females, 34 winged 

 females, and 566 males ! 



Smith gives August as the time for this ant to swarm 21 , and a 

 small colony, sent to me by Blenkarn from Beckenham in August, 

 1912, which was nesting in a sword case, contained one male, 

 several winged and dealated females, workers and brood ; on the 

 other hand, a male and winged female in Saunders' collection were 

 captured by Harrison on June 26th, 1893, at Ewell. 



Bellevoye 32 shows, however, that the males appear rarely at the 

 end of June and continue till the end of October, in which month 

 they are the most abundant, disappearing in November, the 

 winged females occur chiefly in September and October, and the 

 dealated females all the year round, being seen more abundantly 

 in the summer. 



He is of opinion that they never use their wings for the marriage 

 flight, but that copulation takes place in the nests or their galleries ; 

 the fertilized females then losing their wings and joining the 

 community, and the males gradually dying off. The latter are 

 quicker in their movements than the females, and use their wings 

 to assist themselves in rapidly gliding along the surface. 



This ant is very voracious, eating greedily all kinds of sweets, 

 sugar, cakes, etc., it is very fond of meat and freshly killed insects 

 and will also devour butter and other fats. Daniel 11 utilized their 

 penchant for meat in the preparation of skeletons removing the 

 skin and most of the flesh from the small animals he wished to 

 skeletonize, he placed them where the ants could get at them, and 

 thus obtained over one hundred beautiful skeletons of small 

 quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes, which he gave to the British 

 Museum. 



