Insects. 267 



to me by my friend Mr. E. Doubleday, I succeeded in taking twenty- 

 two specimens ; I should probably not have taken so many had I 

 not, after capturing six or eight, found a pair in copula ; T became 

 anxious to take others, and succeeded in finding three pairs thus 

 connected. 



I have been an examiner of ants' nests, and an observer of their 

 habits, some years, and have searched in scores of the nests of For- 

 mica flava for the Claviger, and this perhaps is the reason why I have 

 not found it. In the immediate neighbourhood of London tliere are 

 no stony fields like those in chalky districts like Mickleham, &c., and, 

 where the soil is subject to retaining a greater degree of moisture, 

 like the London clay, the ant appears to find it necessary to raise 

 up a hillock like a mole-hill, to the upper chambers of which she 

 conveys her larvae, eggs and pupae, as the atmospheric changes ren- 

 der it necessary ; but, on the contrary, at Mickleham I did not ob- 

 serve a single instance of any superstructure being raised, for, in a 

 soil so light as in some places barely to cover the strata of chalk, the 

 ant is glad to find a situation so suited to her purpose as the under- 

 side of a large stone, for here the necessary degree of moisture for 

 the development of her progeny is retained in the earth. Now it will 

 be obvious that the difficulty of detecting the Claviger amongst the 

 accumulations of the ant-hill must be very great, but on removing 

 the stones you are at once, as it were, admitted into the channels of 

 the nest, filled with eggs, larvae and pupae, and amongst these it is 

 that Claviger is found. 



The first question which naturally arises is this — what is the nature 

 of the connexion between the two insects ? P. W. J. Miiller, in Ger- 

 mar's ' Magazin der Entomologie,' informs us that the ants altogether 

 support the Clavigers, for the sake of a peculiar secretion which 

 exudes from them, and which the ants suck from the two flocks of 

 hair that terminate the external angles of the elytra, — that the ants 

 occasionally caress the Clavigers, who then give out a fresh supply of 

 the fluid, — that the Claviger is wholly dependant for support on the 

 ants, who feed it with juices extracted from flowers, &c. 



It is but reasonable to suppose that, as the Claviger is destitute of 

 eyes, it would never of its own accord quit the nest ; and I think the 

 mode in which it becomes distributed will be best shown by what I 

 shall relate of my own observations on another parasite or inhabitant 

 of ants' nests. It must not be supposed, from what I have stated, 

 that every nest contains Clavigers ; that I am convinced is not the 

 case, even in the neighbourhood where it has been found : nor can 



