OUR ANTS. 23 



trace or indication of it. Mr. Rothney tells me, that the late 

 Frederick Smith, specially called his attention to the possible practise 

 of slavery, by Myrmecosystus viaticus (who is known to practise it 

 elsewhere). However, Mr. Rothney wishes to record, as the result 

 of twelve years' observation of ant habits in India, that his experience 

 exactly agrees with mine, and that he totally failed to find any " trace 

 of slavery among Indian ants." Similar testimony is borne by 

 Major Yerbiiry and Messrs. Aitken and Taylor. 



Nothing has struck me more than the activity and energy of 'our 

 ants,' as compared with those of Europe, contrasting so strongly, as 

 it does, with the " limpness" of the human natives of this country. 



Nests. — The ants are very impatient of drought (Lubbock, Forel, 

 and all who have studied ants in confinement, mention the difficulty 

 of preventing evaporation, from the artificial nests). This, no doubt, 

 influences the form and situation of the nests, adopted by them, in their 

 natural state. The form of nest, so common in Europe, represented 

 by a heap of pine-needles, leaves, twigs, &c., is never seen out here. 

 The vast majority of nests, here, are subterranean, indeed, the propor- 

 tion is so large that this may be said to be the normal situation. 

 Almost all the rest are found in hollows in trees, such as those of 

 Cataulacus, Sinia, some species of Pheidole and of Crcmastogaster. 

 A few species habitually fix their headquarters in leaf-blisters, 

 galls, &c., i. e., in cavities in the living tissues of trees ; these are rare, 

 and the only hond fide case I can mention is the Cardiocondyla 

 Wroiighfoni (Forel), which lives in blisters on the leaf of the 

 Jambhul.* Finally, a few species construct nests, more or less 

 elaborate, such qxq (Ecophylla and some species of Polyrachis (which 

 construct nests by joining together growing leaves with some silky 

 material) and Cremastogaster Rogenhoferi and C. eheninus and 

 perhaps some other species, which build nests of a material which 

 looks like cow-dung, but which is, probably, a sort of coarse brown 

 paper, manufactured from vegetable tissues, and suspend them from 

 the branches of trees, like wasps' nests. The normal situation for the 

 nest of a species is, however, not always strictly adhered to. I have 

 noticed that, on the Ghats, with a heavy rainfall and abundance of 



* Even this species I have found living underground. 



