NOTES ON MEXICAN ANTS. 69 
flying about these nests, and resting themselves upon the 
dead branches which happen to be there, thus, I feel well 
assured, awaiting the coming forth from these of the females 
of their species which have entered into the formicary. 
* At the commencement of the rainy season, after the first 
storms of the season, the Œcodoma begins the work of re- 
production. The union of the sexes probably takes place 
during the night, for in the morning one finds the neighbor- 
hood of the formicary strewn with the dead bodies of the 
males and the females, the latter already fertile, from whom 
the workers make it their duty to tear away their wings. 
“The ravages committed by the Gicodoma* in inhabited 
places, both by the surface which their nest removes from 
cultivation, and by the number of trees which they despoil 
of their leaves, are at times considerable, and demand very 
great watchfulness on the part of the cultivators. They 
have essayed a thousand ways to put an end to the havoc 
which these cause. The only mode which offers a sure 
chance of success is the removal, the extraction of the whole 
nest. For this purpose they dig a trench of sufficient depth 
around the whole, then carry away the dome or hillock and 
the walls of the nest, until, arriving at the cells of the larve, 
they destroy them and also the eggs. The perfect insects 
which escupe the ruin of their colony then disappear never 
to return. t 
“The coffee plantations, which demand a light soil, are fre- 
quently chosen by the hormigas arrieras as places in which 
tó construct their nests; and one can easily imagine the loss 
which they cause to the proprietors, if these last do not con- 




in the tan. [The Senrabeus ji beetle. Scolia is a wasp 
is a 1 z $ Bg A én ne 
allied to Elis; neither have been supposed hitherto to be parasitic insects. Their 


P y auy mem oo is 
** At least the Œc. Mexicana, for the Œc. hystrix, which also I have apenas ar 
ee ee ee Y 5 P OT GN S . so 4 ae + doing y mage. 

may be well to add that Orizaba is in the temperate, Cordova between the 
and hot, and Tehuacan in the cold regions or zones of Mexico. Mr. Bates reer 
the Œc. hystrix that he once “found a vast number in a low meadow, carrying y 
rs iieii Aat ae + Ft p + led i Is This was in Brazil. x 

“= 
