Insects. 1931 



in that species the posterior tarsi are long, slender and pale ; in the 

 present species they are short, stout and dark-coloured. 



Although I possess several specimens of the present genus which I 

 have not described, yet I think it very probable that further observa- 

 tion will prove some to belong to females described in the present 

 papers, and I am unwilling to increase species unnecessarily. I shall 

 probably find it necessary to describe a few more species in an appen- 

 dix to my Descriptions of British Bees. 



Frederick Smith. 



5, High Street, Newington, 

 October, 1847. 



Note on the large Wood Ant. — On the 11th ult. I was walking along a Devonshire 

 lane (these lanes seem more like inlets to the abodes of the blessed than aught else), 

 and saw many young colonies of the large brown ant : I disturbed one, and, stooping 

 down to smell more nearly the odour which they emit, felt something sprinkling my 

 face like very minute rain : I desired my companion to approximate his person, in 

 order to undergo the like aspersion, and he had no sooner done so than he bounded 

 up like a startled Arab, yelling amain : portions of the ascending shower had entered 

 his eyes, causing intense pain. I put down my hand, and could feel the cool particles 

 sprinkling it all over. Then I let some of the ants crawl upon my stick ; and as I 

 watched them I was somewhat astonished to see them alter their position, by standing 

 nearly upright, propping themselves up by their obese extremity and two hinder legs, 

 thus bringing their sting to bear on the point, and then squirting out a clear liquid 

 from their mouth to the distance of some six or eight inches : altogether they looked 

 in a decidedly milling attitude. This liquid, as I suppose, is formic acid : it has a 

 pungency, both as regards feeling and smell, perhaps superior to muriatic : I judge 

 by the keenness with which it affected my nasal nerves. I take it this power of ejecting 

 an offensive matter is given them by Nature as a defence : the skunk of America sends 

 out a suffocating stench when attacked ; and it is said that the fox, as a last resource, 

 offends the eyes of the hounds by a disagreeable application. Mr. Waterton disallows 

 that the weasel tribe have this faculty as a defence, and asks " at what old Granny's 

 fireside the information w r as picked up." I fancy he must be a bold man, and girt 

 with a panoply of Nature's lore, who would call in question the opinion of that 

 " amiable and enterprising naturalist," as he has been aptly called. Although an ant 

 and a weasel are different beings, yet they each have the power of emitting strong 

 odours ; which odours perhaps stand them in the room of weapons of defence to them- 

 selves (certainly of offence to other animals), without being offensive to their respective 

 owners. A Sussex naturalist told me that he once nearly lost his breath by bending 

 over a large nest which he had disturbed, the fume acting like carbonic acid. I have 

 seen the nests entire in a wood near Edmonton, built of fir leaves, &c, and conical, 

 rising three feet high on a base of about eighteen inches or two feet. — Henry Daniell ; 

 Exeter ', September 16, 1847. 



