ANTS MYRMTCIDES 



159 



ivorkers of the genera Eciton and Aenictus of the suh-family 

 Dorylides have, like the Jfi/rmicides, tiuo nodes in the ped/icel.') 



This sub-family consists of about 1000 species, and includes 

 a great variety of forms, but, as they are 

 most of them of small size, they are less 

 known than the Camponotides, and much 

 less attention has been paid to their 

 habits and intelligence. Forel, until re- 

 cently, adopted four groups : Myrmicini, 

 Attini, Pseudomyrmini and Cryptocerini ; 

 but he is now disposed to increase this 

 number to eight.^ They are distinguished 

 by differences in the clypeus, and in the 

 form of the head ; but it must be noted 



that the characters by which the groups j,^^^ ^^.-pueidoiogetcv labo- 

 are defined are not in all cases fully nosus, large and small 



Til, ,1 1 rni r\ ^ workers. East India. 



applicable to the males. The Crypto- 

 cerini are in external structure the most highly modified of 

 Hymenoptera, if not of all the tribes of Insecta. 



i. The Myrmicini proper are defined by Forel as having the 

 antennae inserted near the middle, a little behind the front, of 

 the head, which has carinae on the inner 

 sides, but none on the outer sides, of the 

 insertions of the antennae ; the clypeus ex- 

 tends between the antennae. 



Certain genera of small European ants of 

 the group Myrmicini display some most 

 anomalous phenomena. This is especially 

 tlie case in Formicoxenus, Anergates and 

 Tomognathus. The facts known have, how- 

 ever, been most of them only recently dis- 

 covered, and some obscurity still exists as to 

 many of even the more important points 

 in these extraordinary life-histories. 



It has long been known that the little 

 Formicoxenus nitidulus lives as a guest 

 in the nests of Formica rufa, the wood-ant; and another 

 similar ant, Stenamraa westivoodi, which shares the same life, 



Ym. 68. — Formicoxenus 

 niiididus, male. (After 

 Adlerz. ) 



1 Ann. Soc. ent. Belgique, xx.xvii. 1893, p. 163. 



