100 BRITISH ANTS. 



The Rev. G. Wheeler 53 stated that some freshly set butterflies 

 in his possession were destroyed by this ant ; and he found that 

 they only devoured those specimens which had been killed in the 

 cyanide bottle, whilst others, in the same setting box, into which 

 oxalic acid had been injected were left untouched. This ant has 

 been said to be very destructive to the common " Bed-bug," but 

 Walker found when both species occurred on board a ship in which 

 he was travelling that they lived together in perfect amity 53 . 



Tracks are formed from the entrances to their dwellings, which 

 all the ants follow when they go abroad, passing and repassing each 

 other and never deviating from the beaten route. If one of these 

 tracks be watched, deflated females will be observed at intervals 

 amidst the hurrying crowds of workers, and in the course of their 

 progress sometimes laying eggs, which are immediately collected 

 by the workers, and occasionally one of the latter will be seen to 

 carry a larva about with it on the march. Daniel 11 , however, 

 stated that the pupae were carried about by both the males (!) 

 and workers. 



They must possess a very remarkable sense of smell, or some 

 other faculty which enables them to discover the whereabouts of 

 any comestible suitable to them : In August, 1893, when staying 

 at the Seabrook Hotel, at Hythe 49 , I captured workers in the 

 coffee room which were brought up from the kitchens on plates, 

 etc., though I had never seen any sign of them upstairs, but on 

 looking in a box which contained some beetles, freshly killed and 

 set, which I had placed in a drawer in a chest-of-drawers in my 

 bedroom, I was surprised to find it full of these little creatures. 



Bellevoye 32 also gives several instances of this kind on one 

 occasion he had placed two recently captured spiders in a box on 

 a window-sill on the second etage in his house and on looking at 

 them next day he found the box full of these ants (the abdomens 

 of both spiders had been devoured), and he added, as a rule, were 

 never seen upstairs. He repeated this experiment again with the 

 same result, and at another time having pinned some recently 

 killed dragon-flies in a glass case which was kept upstairs and 

 which had always contained some old dry specimens, the ants soon 

 appeared and cleaned out the bodies of the fresh dragon-flies, 

 leaving the old dry ones untouched. 



When once Monomorium pharaonis has become established 

 anywhere it is almost impossible to get rid of it, since it nests in 

 the foundations, in walls and under the floors in houses, and at the 

 back of the ovens in bakeries, etc. Dr. Bostock 6 had the whole 

 of his kitchen floor taken up, the grate and part of the walls and 

 woodwork removed, and new tiles set in cement fixed on the 

 walls and floor, and even then this pest was not eradicated. 

 Wheeler 51 suggests pouring, or injecting, boiling water, benzine, 

 gasoline, or preferably carbon bisulphide into the crevices which 



