362 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



which had served as a formicary for a large colony of ants. The insects 

 with their larvae and pupae were scattered over the ground, and the chick- 

 ens, getting scent of the game, flocked one after another from the barn- 

 yard in such numbers and with such greedy persistence that he had to 

 cease his labors out of regard to the safety of his fowl. The chickens de- 

 voured the larvae and pupae and the ants. 



The same gentleman says that he has found particles of ants in the 

 stomachs of grouse, although it is possible that they may have picked up 

 the ants while feeding upon the larvae, which latter may have been the 

 chief object of desire. The various song birds of America, as the mocking- 

 bird, catbird, thrushes, etc., eat the larvae of ants, as is well known, but 

 Mr. Voelker had never discovered particles of the ants themselves in their 

 crops. 



Mr. T. B. A. Cockerell * notes that Dr. Rlley records that sparrows 



(Passer domesticus) feed on certain Aculeta, Halictus, Typhia, Myzine, and 



ants. Mr. Cockerell himself had found ants in the stomach of 



_. , er Sialia arctica shot in Ouster County, California. The stomach 



of a woodpecker shot by Rev. A. Wright in the same locality 



contained a number of ants, the majority apparently Formica fusca, with 



a few of Formica integra. 



I can certify by my personal observations, as well as by reports of 

 others, that some of the native birds of Fairmount Park (Philadelphia) 

 feed upon colonies of Formica integra, which are found in the neighbor- 

 hood of Rockland on the Schuylkill River and elsewhere. It is well known 

 that birds of all kinds are fond of " ant eggs," by which popular name is 

 meant the pupae of those ants whose larvae enclose themselves within a 

 cocoon. These ant pupae are gathered in immense quantities from the 

 mounds of Formica exsecta, F. fusca, F. rufa in various parts of Europe, 

 and are regularly sold in the markets as food for pet birds. These eggs, 

 if nothing else, would invite the attack of birds upon ant hills, and would 

 thus lead directly to devouring the ants themselves, who invariably rally 

 to defend their nurslings. 



Certain game birds are extremely fond of ants. In the summer of 1887, 

 while visiting Mr. E. C. Cornwallis at Linton Park, Kent, England, I was 

 taken by my host to the gamekeeper's lodge, on the grounds of 

 which several hundred, perhaps a thousand or more, young par- 

 Birds tridges were being raised for the purpose of stocking the shoot- 

 ing park. These little fellows had been hatched out under barn- 

 yard fowl, and were, when I saw them, turned loose upon a bit of sloping 

 ground that was literally honeycombed with the nests of a small species of 

 ant, apparently a Lasius. The whole slope had been torn up in order to 

 procure these nests as food for the young partridges. Mr. Cornwallis gave 



1 Entomological News, Philadelphia, May, 1890, page 65. 



