270 BRITISH ANTS. 



borders of hedges, etc., though he says it is rarely found in clearings 

 in woods 30 . Wasmann points out that in Holland pratensis occurs 

 more commonly in woods and copses than it does in Luxemburg 

 where it forms nests in more open places 42 . 



Mayr says this ant sometimes lives entirely underground, no 

 hillock being constructed over the nest 12 , and Farren- White found 

 it acting as a miner in a turf bank at Bournemouth 35 , and he says 

 its nests though often seen in the pine-woods in that locality, are 

 as often found on the open heath 36 . He discovered a large nest on 

 a sloping bank of fern and heather and gorse, on the margin of a 

 running stream, the depth at the crown of the nest measuring 

 twelve inches, and eighteen inches down the slope of the bank 

 seven inches across the nest ; from the upper part to the base on the 

 declivity seventy-two inches ; and a foot from the crown, fifty- three 

 inches across ; the circumference measuring eighteen feet and four 

 inches 35 . 



The colony I found at Bournemouth on June 15th, 1914, was 

 situated in the grass by the side of a road. Their hillock, which was 

 nine or ten inches high and fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, 

 was built at the foot of a small gorse bush, but not among trees, 

 and was composed of coarse materials long twigs, bits of straw, 

 etc. and the ants had collected a number of wooden matches, and 

 small pebbles from the footpath near the road, which they had 

 mixed with the other materials of the nest. These ants were mostly 

 large in size and brightly coloured as in Continental specimens. 



According to Forel, pratensis will live a little nearer to human 

 habitations than rufa, and is sometimes found in gardens in villages 

 in Switzerland 23 when I was staying with him at Yvorne in 1912, 

 he showed me a nest in a field quite close to his house. 



The nests are similar to those of rufa, but smaller on the average, 

 being not so high, flatter, and composed of coarser materials, and 

 sometimes occur in old tree-stumps which are covered by the 

 hillocks. 



Nylander records nests in Finland made of bits of grass, birch 

 twigs, etc. 6 , and Wasmann says that in Dutch Limburg they are 

 generally covered with a layer of rabbits' excreta, this being very 

 characteristic of pratensis in that region 33 , and on the other hand 

 in Luxemburg where rabbits are scarce, this ant uses the droppings 

 of hares in a similar way 42 . On June 28th, 1900, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Luxemburg he found a nest of pratensis which appeared to 

 be covered with rabbits' droppings, but on closer observation he 

 found that the layer consisted of the dry seed-heads of Centaurea 

 pratensis' 10 . 



The colonies of this ant are usually smaller than those of rufa, 

 and they may occur singly, or near to each other, Schenck says 

 three or four nests will often be found close together 10 , and Wheeler 

 mentions that pratensis often makes " tenuous paths " which are 



