Stainforth: The Guests of Yorkshire Ants. 395 
South Ferriby, and have noticed the proximity of ants when 
capturing this species on the Humber shore at Welwick and 
Saltend Common, near Hull. The species is generally dis- 
tributed throughout the county. Its resemblance in form and 
movement to an ant is sufficiently striking as to deceive the 
unfamiliarised eye, and I personally incline to the view that 
there is an association between the spider and ants. With the 
exception of an introduced species found at Kew, there are 
only two other ant-mimics among our indigenous spiders, 
and both occur so sparingly in the extreme south that we shall 
unfortunately never have the pleasure of welcoming them in 
our Yorkshire fauna. 
While on the subject of the mimicry of ants by other 
animals it is interesting to note that Wasmann considers the 
beetle, Clerus (Thanasimus) formicarius as an example of 
true mimicry. This insect, several examples of which were 
captured in Hull about fifteen years ago, and which has also 
occurred at York, Scarborough, and Wath-on-Dearne, is in no 
way a guest in ants’ nests. 
DOUBTFULLY MYRMECOPHILOUS SPECIES.—Quite a number 
of beetles are recorded whose claim to the title of myrmecophile 
is doubtful. Donisthorpe* enumerates nineteen species, of 
which eight have been found in Yorkshire. These are :— 
Homalota analis Gr., Heterothops nigra, Staphylinus stercorarius 
Ol., Leptinus testaceus Miill., Trichonyx sulcicollis Reich., 
Ptenidium turgidum Th., Abraeus globosus Hoff., Corticaria 
serrata Pk. I took a specimen of Staphylinus stercorarius in 
a nest of Myrmica scabrinodis at Weedley on September 15th. 
It appeared to be quite at home in the nest. 
This capture is more interesting than may appear at —.st 
sight. In the ‘Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Insvi.en- 
biologie,’ for IgI0, is a paper by Wasmann on ‘ Staphylinus- 
Arten als Ameisenrauber ’ (Staphylinus species as Ant-Robbers), 
which deals fully and especially with the status of S. stercorarius 
as a myrmecophile. His opening paragraph has _ sufficient 
bearing upon the occurrence noted above to be worth 
quoting. He writes: ‘Interesting as are the higher stages 
of adaptation which we find among the normal guests of ants 
and termites, in both a morphological and a biological sense, 
we must not on this account overlook the initial stages of 
adaptation which appear in many so-called “ accidental guests.” 
These are often the forms which furnish us with the key to the 
understanding of the first stages of those processes of adapta- 
tion of which we find the complete expression in normal myrme- 
cophiles and termitophiles. Many a one, who has turned his 
attention to the special study of ants’ guests, upon seeing a 
* Col. Brit. Isles, VI. p. 330. 
1915 Dec iE 
