680 : Ants Nests and their Inhabitants,  [August, ee 
tors are few anyway, and scientific collectors are very scarce indeed, 
Besides it requires a good deal of enthusiasm in collecting to 
attack a large nest of large ants on a warm day when the inhabi- 
tants are warlike and capable of inflicting decidedly painful bites, 
and large colonies are always more prolific both in species and 
specimens. Collecting thus becomes difficult, and the result is 
that comparatively little is known of our myrmecophilous fauna. 
It is too early, therefore, to undertake anything like a complete 
list of species, and only a brief sketch of what an ant heap often 
contains is given. 
Five groups of myrmecophilous insects can be recognized. 
First. Those insects captured by the ants and brought into 
their nests as part of their source of food supply. 
Second. Species found in the nests only in the larval state. 
Third. Insects found in the imago or perfect state in the nests, 
about the larva of which nothing is known. l 
_ Fourth. Species often found in ants’ nests, but also occurring 
elsewhere. 
Fifth. True parasites on the ants, that feed upon their host or 
its larva. 
_ In the first group—those insects which the ants collect and 
care for—the Aphides play an important part. It is well known 
that the ants seek the plant-lice and lick the sweet excretions; 
but it is less known, perhaps, that they also collect and rear some 
= Species, providing homes for them. 
= A yellow species of Lasius, occurring commonly in the 
= vicinity of Washington and New York, well illustrates this 
\ group. The ants make their nests under large stones and close 
_ to the roots of trees or shrubs. They carefully excavate galleries 
: around a root or series of roots, and then collect the winter eggs 
of a species of Pemphigus in large numbers—not by hundreds © 
out by thousands—eggs that no entomologist has yet succeeded 
- 
in ing. These are carefully placed in suitable stami 
_ around the cleaned root, and the Pemphigus, when hatched, fin 
_ their food supply ready at hand, and in return are expected to 
yield sweets to the ants. The winged form of this species leaves 
the nest and provides for a continuation of the race, and the ants 
are then compelled to lay in a new supply of eggs. 
It would be supposed that the ants would be very careful to 
> out all enemies of these, their domestic animals; but than 
