OUR ANTS. 19 



food, has carried tlie art of nest-building to perfection. In some 

 species at any rate, as testified to me by Mr. Aitken and by Mr. 

 Taylor (Orissa), she still habitually keeps cattle, of ten enclosing them 

 in * byres,' specially built over them.* 



Cattle. — Ant cattle are usually AphidcB or Cocci, some species 

 however tend various other species of Hemiptera, among which 

 may be named Leptocentrus taunis and Diaphorina guttulata. 

 Larvffi of the Lyccenidce, among the butterflies, also furnish a 

 considerable contingent of cattle. The following ants are recorded 

 by de Niceville in his '' Butterflies of India," as tending lycsenid 

 larvae, viz. : — 

 FOEMICI^:— 



Camponotus riibripes {Drury). 



Camponotus mitis (Smith). 



Formica nigra {??z= Camponotus sp). 



(Ecophylla smaragdina (Fah.). 



Prenolepis longicornis (Latr.). 



Prenolepis clandestina[Mayr.). 



Tapinoma melanocephalum [Fah,). 

 MYBMfCIDJE:— 



Monomorium speculare [Mayr.). 



Monomorium latinode [Mayr. J. 



Cremastogaster Nicevillei, MS. [Forel). 



Pheidole quadrispinosa {Jerdon). 



Pheidole latinoda (Roger). 

 Mr. de Niceville does not say what he understands by ' tending 

 cattle,' and though most of the above very likely do tend cattle, I 

 can scarcely believe that Pheidole latinoda does so habitually. Of 

 course any ant, even a Ponera, will stop to lick sugar when she comes 

 across it. 



Pets. — It is very diflScult to say where the line between pets and 

 cattle, on the one hand, and pets and fellow-lodgers, on the other, 



* Though Cremastogaster does not store grain, I have seen perelegans, lie in wait 

 for Eolcomyrmex, returning home, laden with grain, and by threats, rob her of her 

 load, on her own private road ; and this manoeuvre was executed, not by stray indivi- 

 duals, but by a considerable portion of the whole community. Surely this is the 

 acme of civilization. 



