ANTS. 121 



thing worth saving from the old nest to a temporary shelter on a 

 small slope, down which they rolled their loads to others waiting 

 below, while they themselves returned for more ; they also carried 

 out many dead ants from the nest. Soon afterwards, thinking 

 themselves in danger so close to the old nest, they removed to 

 a distance of 200 yards. Next year they attacked Mr. Belt's 

 garden again, and he forced them to leave their nest in the same 

 manner, when they returned to the old nest. Belt adds : " I do 

 not doubt that some of the leading minds in this formicarium 

 recollected the nest of the year before, and directed the migration 

 to it." This is confirmed by Sir John Lubbock's discovery that 

 ants live at least seven or eight years in the perfect state, and 

 possibly much longer. 



Limited space prevents me from noticing the habits of our 

 North European ants, but this is of little consequence, as they are 

 referred to in a great number of popular works ; and those who 

 wish for information on this subject will easily find a good com- 

 pendium of the older observations in Kirby and Spence's Intro- 

 duction to Entomology, while Sir John Lubbock has just summed up 

 his own most important observations and experiments in his new 

 book on Ants, Bees, and Wasps. I have therefore preferred to 

 give an account of some of the more interesting foreign species, 

 derived from works likely to be less known, or less accessible tr 

 the generality of my readers. 



HYMENOPTERA ACULEATA FOSSORES. 



Wings not folded; species solitary, consisting of males and 

 females, the latter sometimes apterous; generally forming their 

 nests in the ground. 



FAMILY IX. Mutillidce. 



Female usually apterous, and armed with a sting ; legs stout ; 

 femora not dilated ; tibiae more or less spinose ; antennae filiform ; 

 male with the tip of the abdomen generally furnished with teeth 

 or spines. 



The Mutillidce are sometimes called Solitary Ants, for they 

 somewhat resemble a large ant in shape. Smith, in fact, included 

 them with the ants in his Catalogue of British Fossorial Hymenoptera; 

 but they are too closely allied to the Scoliidce to be placed in a 

 different section of the Hymenoptera. The species ofMutilla are very 



