No.411.] MALES OF SOME TEXAN ECITONS. I7E 
the obese larvae from which they were evidently derived were 
examined more carefully, and it was found that many of them 
were queen larvae and pupz of some one of three species of 
Pheidole whose nests had been noticed a short distance from 
the Eciton nest. Other larva and pupz appeared to belong 
to another common ant, Solenopsis geminata. There could be 
no doubt that the ecitons had stolen all these myrmicine 
progeny, which they proceeded to devour a few days later 
till all had disappeared. 
That this habit of pillaging the nests of other ants is shared 
also by the tropical ecitons is shown by the following obser- 
vation recorded by Sumichrast!: “It is probable that the 
Eciton attacks the larva and pupe of other ants to make 
them serve as food for the nourishment of their own larvae or 
for sustaining themselves. I surprised one day, in the first 
hours of a somber and rainy morning, a considerable assem- 
blage of zepeguas (No. 36), fastened one upon another like a 
swarm of bees, and entirely still. Having dispersed them, I 
perceived in the place which they covered with their bodies a 
quantity of little white larvae, brought away, doubtless, from 
‘the nests of some Myrmicide. At another time I witnessed 
the pillage of a nursery of other ants by a quite numerous band 
of workers minores of No. 68; alarmed by the reprisals which 
I made on their account, they took to flight, some of them 
carrying between their mandibles as many as three larvae at 
once." ? ; 
The habit of seizing the larvae and pupæ of other ants and 
of storing them in their nests for several days till required for 
food is only a special phase of a more general habit of the 
ecitons and probably also of some other ants, for the ecitons 
do the same with the other portable insect booty which they 
1 Loe. cits p.42. Au f 
2 Recently at Querétaro in Mexico the senior author surprised a troop o 
Eciton crassicorne Sm. pillaging a large nest of the agricultural ant (Pogono- 
this powerful Eciton was found 
myrmex barbatus). The temporary nest of 
under a large stone only a few yards away. PYR SN 
agriculturals. At Cuernavaca the same species of Eciton was seen pillaging 
some small Pheidole nests and dragging away carabid beetles from under the 
stones. i 
