334 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X 



They are occasionally found on the outside of the fruit for a few hours, 

 but I am of opinion that they do not remain outside for any great length 

 of time, except in the case of injury, when they prefer to come outside 

 to die. After this first batch of larv^ had been in captivity for two or 

 three days, the black ants disappeared, and their places were taken by 

 a far greater number of a smaller species of red ant, found commonly 

 about every building and living in the crevices of window and door 

 frames. I now removed a larva from its habitation in order to watch 

 the operations of the ants more closely. On the example taken there were 

 five ants, three of which seemed to wander about the anterior segments, 

 and two paid close attention to the scutate anal segment, I noticed that 

 those on the anterior segments did not seem to be doing anything in parti- 

 cular, only occasionally touching the back of the larva with their antennse, 

 and sometimes combing the same through their mandibles. These may have 

 been taking up some of the fermented juice of the fruit from the larva's 

 back and eating it, but there could be no certainty on the point, and the 

 antennae of those observed were only cleaned in this way at long intervals. 

 The other two ants seemed in a far more excited state, and often ran to the 

 upper part of the scutate segment, and continued for some time to keep up a 

 sharp vibration of their antennaa, the tip of each of which alternately struck 

 the larva. I noticed at that time that there was a depression in the segment 

 between the points where the antennse of the ant struck the skin, but I did 

 not observe any moisture exuding from it, or did the ant, on any occasion of 

 my observation, place its mouth in contact with the depression. These twoi 

 ants seemed to be constantly attracted to the same place, and went through 

 the same performance many times, I also noticed that on each side of the 

 scutate segment there was an obliquely placed oval orifice which seemed to be 

 of the same formation as the breathing apertures on the other segments, but 

 that, instead of being dark coloured with a shiny dark margin, it was pale 

 bu£E with a margin of the same colour. I am nearly certain that these are 

 merely breathing apertures or spiracles and have no relation to these tentacle- 

 bearing apertures which are foui^d on the penultimate segments of other 

 Ltjccenidce. My chief reason for holding this view is because, when the larva 

 has buried itself wholly in the fruit, its breathing powers by the lateral 

 spiracles would be extremely hampered if not altogether stopped, but the 

 presence of these two spiracles on the scutate exposed segment enable it to 

 breath with facility. There are no other similar apertures in the segment. 

 It is possible that these may be the apertures mistaken by Mr. F, E. Pargiter 

 in the case of the very closely allied Virachola isocrates, Fabricius {vide Butt„ 

 of India, vol. iii, p. 481) for tentacle -bearing ones. This larva was then 

 allowed access to the broken fruit from which it had been taken, but it 



preferred to begin on a fresh fruit. 



G. C. DUDGEON, f.e.s. 

 Fagoo, British Bhutan, Seftemler, 1895. 



