168 BRITISH ANTS. 



Many colonies contained males, winged and deflated females, 

 some males, but no winged females, others no winged forms but 

 several deflated females in each, and in one a single deflated 

 female was present. 



Several large specimens (3'4 mm. in length) occurred among the 

 workers in these nests, in which the head is nearly entirely black 

 above, and more rugose than in the ordinary worker, the gaster 

 long, and the band, interrupted in the centre, on the first segment, 

 distinct, the other segments being also banded. 



Specimens sent to authorities on the continent were named 

 L. tuberum var. tubero-affinis, and subsequently L. interruptus, the 

 latter being undoubtedly correct. As Crawley points out, the form 

 of the pedicel in the male of interruptus distinguishes it from the 

 males of the others, and as the pedicel in the male of affinis is even 

 more elongate than in the male of tuberum, the former is still 

 further removed from the New Forest specimens 15 . 



L. interruptus chiefly nests under stones, though Forel records it 

 as rare in Switzerland in dead wood and under bark 7 (but also 

 under stones), Bondroit says it occurs especially under stones, and 

 rarely in moss, and he once found a small colony in an empty 

 snail-shell in Belgium 11 , and Schenck observed it under moss and 

 turf, and running about amongst grass at Nassau 1 . 



The winged forms occur in June and July, Forel found males 

 and winged females in the nests at Vaux from June 27th to July 

 17th 8 , Schenck observed a winged female, two males, and a number 

 of sex pupae in a nest on the slope of a mountain on June 26th 2 , 

 and subsequently, in the same place, many winged females and 

 one male 3 ; he also records several deflated females in each nest 

 in the spring and late summer 1 . 



Crawley found a dealated female interruptus in the earth of a 

 Tetramorium nest ; colonies of the Leptothorax and Tetramorium 

 would not mix in captivity, but he united two colonies of the former 

 in an observation nest, which placed their broods in a single pile, 

 and mingled together without any animosity 14 . 



On June 23rd, 1913, when in the New Forest locality, I again 

 found a number of colonies of L. interruptus under stones some 

 in connection with Tetramorium nests which contained workers, 

 dealated females, and larvae, but no winged forms nor pupae were 

 present. One of these, in which three dealated females were 

 present, I brought home, and established it in a " Crawley-Lubbock" 

 nest, where it has lived ever since. On March 5th, 1914, larvae of 

 Tetramorium caespitum, Myrmecina graminicola, and Leptothorax 

 affinis were placed in the outer part of the observation nest, when 

 the Leptothorax larvae were carried in first, and subsequently the 

 others. The Tetramorium and Myrmecina larvae were partly 

 devoured in a few days and their remains buried in the earth, the 

 L. affinis larvae being placed with the L. interruptus brood, but 



