78 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. V. 



space than the diameter of one between the posterior and anterior, 

 in front of (while the face which is very convex) is deeply sulcated : 

 mandibles very broad and very slightly curved, thin inner edge 

 acute and nearly straight. 



Thorax silky, the pleurae shining, gibbous in front and at the 

 scutellum, which is slightly longitudinally impressed in the centre; 

 metathorax rather elongate, slightly rounded at the apex, very 

 pubescent : wings clouded with a fuscous tinge, thin nervures dark 

 brown, the cubital deeply bisinuate, the first sinus dipping into the 

 second discoidal cell, and the second beyond the recurrent nervure 

 which is straight and inverted at rather more than two-thirds of the 

 length of the first sub-marginal cell: legs castaneous, the femora, 

 elongate-ovate, thin outline rounded both above and below. 



Abdomen with a rich satiny reflection, the peduncle quadrate, 

 gibbous, the ventral portion slightly produced and boat-shaped, the 

 remaining segments transverse, the sexual organ protruding at the 

 apex of the terminal segment and fringed. 



Distribution. — It has been reported from Bengal. 



Reports of attacks in cane fields. — In June, 1899, tne Director of 

 Land Records and Agriculture sent amongst other insects pupse and 

 imagoes of this insect which were reported as burrowing into the 

 main stalk of the young sugarcane plant in April and May, when the 

 crop is two or three months old. The stalk attacked by this insect 

 rots inside and the leaves dry up. It is stated that fresh shoots 

 begin to spring from the root if watering is kept up, this presumably 

 drowning the aggressors. The insects were found in abundance in the 

 plant. 



Mons. Forel, the expert who identified the insect, stated in his 

 letter 'This species like the whole of the genus lives exclusively 

 on animal food. All species of Dorylus are driver ants, hunting 

 insects and small living animals underground. This was the accepted 

 theory but it would appear to be not correct as regards all species 

 of the genus. The following is a note on the subject by Mr. E. E. 

 Green, Government Entomologist, Ceylon, and I can from personal 

 observation support Mr. Green's contention as far as some parts of 

 India are concerned. Mr. Green writes:- — 



"On page 198 of Indian Museum Notes, Volume IV, No. 4, I see a state- 

 ment on Dr. Forel's authority that all species of Dorylus feed on animal food, and 

 that Dorylus orientalis, Westw., cannot therefore be obnoxious to potatoes. 1 

 With all due deference to Dr. Forel's acknowledged learning on the subject of 

 ant I most emphatically contradict this statement, as far as it refers to 

 Dorylus orientalis, Westw. The workers of this species (determined for me by 



I Or to other vegetable food.-E. P. S. 



