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1886] Ants’ Nests and their Inhabitants. 685 
but recently made by Wm. Müller, who carefully observed an 
army on one of its forays. 
Some of the ants, which like many species of Formica build 
over-ground or surface nests, leave their quarters at the approach 
of cold weather and construct a winter nest some distance off under ~ 
ground, The inquilines may be found in the old nest for some 
little time after the ants have left, but eventually they also leave 
the nest and are supposed to follow: at any rate they disappear. 
Myrmecophili may be collected at all times, but practically the 
spring is the only real collecting season. In winter everything is 
frozen hard and the insects are in the lower galleries and are tor- 
pid, or are in the winter nest, which is indiscoverable. In sum- 
mer the ants are so numerous and so vicious that it is a bold man 
and a persistent one that braves their attacks long enough to 
secure a good harvest. The nest must be taken up piecemeal 
and dumped into a bag to be sifted through a net at the bottom ‘ 
with sufficiently large meshes to allow the insects to fall through. ; 
Of course the collector must submit to be nipped in innumerable 
and often inconvenient places by the enraged ants before he can 
secure his prizes. It is amusing to watch the rage of these tiny 
creatures; they run round on the cloth upon which they are 
sifted, audibly gnashing their jaws, and on the approach of a fin- 
ger, the forceps or anything else, they rise vertically, with wide 
Open jaws and abdomen curved under the body, ready to nip at 
whatever comes along. Placing stones in the vicinity of the nest 
yields some species, but others seem never to leave the galleries, © 
and can only be obtained by destroying and sifting them. 2 
It often happens that two or even three species of ants have 
their nests under one large stone, and often, too, the Termites, or 
So-called white ants, have also a colony there. These species 
Seem all to live amicably together so long as they are undis- 
turbed, but when the stone is turned they seem to think that the- 
other species is in some way responsible, and an indiscriminate 
fight follows, 
| Points of assault that 
galleries, 
The relation of these true Myrmecophili, upon which no excre- 
_ tery organs have been observed, to their hosts, offers a large and 
