176 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



by Lasius fuliginosus (jet ant). The siege at once began ; 

 but the jet ants called in help from the nests connected with 

 their colony, and thick black columns were at once seen- 

 coming out from the surrounding trees. The pratenses were 

 obliged to fly, and left behind them a mass of dead as well 

 as their pupae, which last were carried off by the victors to 

 their nests to be eaten. 



Lasius niger, the black garden ant, a very wide-spread 

 species, often fights with varying results with cocspitum, 

 fusca, flavus, sanguinea, different Myrmica species, etc. Forel 

 one day saw thousands of them besieging a nest of the 

 rufibarbis without any definite result arising on either side. 

 Huber observed a battle between two nests of the Lasius 

 flavus (yellow ant) which stole each others' plant-lice. 



McCook (loc. cit., 29 Jan., 1878) saw a battle between 

 two nests of the Tetramoriwn ccespitum lasting for nearly 

 three weeks, which took place near a church standing 

 between Broad Street and Penn Square in Philadelphia. 

 He also established the fact that in such a fight friend and 

 foe recognise each other with absolute certainty after pom- 

 munication by their feelers, however great may be the whirl 

 or confusion of the struggle, and although on investigation 

 of different warriors no difference is perceptible. According 

 to his recorded observation the reason of this striking fact 

 lies in the sense of smell among the T. ceespitum, while 

 similar experiments with Camp. Pennsyl. yielded quite con- 

 trary results. Further, individuals of the before-mentioned 

 Pennsylvanian mound-building ants were treated as enemies 

 on their return home after McCook had dipped them only 

 once in water, and here the momentary loss of their specific 

 smell can clearly alone be in fault. Strange to say, the ants 

 thus treated offered no resistance to the assaults of their 

 friends, as though they were conscious of their involuntary 

 mistake. 



The most formidable of all the European ants is, accord- 

 ing to Forel, the rather rare Myrmica, or Myrmica rubida, 

 for it knows how to make special use of its sting and can 

 render itself very unpleasant even to men. Its sting is 

 almost more powerful than that of a wasp. Forel saw the 

 rubidce kill a whole sackful of pratenses in less than an hour 

 without losing one of their number. An Amazon which 

 attacked a rubida was killed in a few moments. A handful 



