SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 119 



tliem, carried them into the nest, and from that day until De- 

 cember 1887, more than six months, there was only one other 

 death. [Two of the F. sanguinea are still (Angust 1888) alive.] 

 Although then it may be true, as to which I express no opinion, 

 that there are nests of F. sanguinea without slaves, still this 

 observation seems to indicate that the slaves perform some im- 

 portant function in the economy of the nest. It still remains 

 to be determined in what exactly this function consists. 



Ant-Guests. 



Dr. Wasmann has recently published * an interesting memoir 

 on certain of these " Ant-guests." His observations relate ex- 

 clusively to some of the beetles which live with ants. 



He confirms V. Hagen's statement that the specimens of 

 Atemeles emarginatus which live with Myrmica Icevinodis, a 

 yellow ant, are paler in colour than those which share the nests 

 of the black Formica fusca. He entirely confirms the statements 

 of previous observers that the Atemeles is actually fed by the 

 ants, who also clean them just as they do their own fellows. The 

 Atemeles also, on their part, perform the same kind offices 

 for the ants. He also repeatedly saw the ants licking the 

 bunches of golden hairs on the abdomen of the Atemeles. 



The Atemeles has adopted very closely the habits of the ants 

 uith which it lives. They pair, moreover, in the nests of the 

 ants. Still, they are not entirely dependent on their hosts, like 

 some of the other ant-guests, but are able to feed tliemselves. 

 Indeed the Myrmicas seem to drive them out of the nest to- 

 wards the beginning of May. Dr. Wasmann is disposed to 

 attribute this to the anxiety of the ants fur their young. In 

 Myrmica the pupae are naked, and he thinks the ants are afraid 

 that the Atemeles would be unable to resist the temptation of 

 eating them. In support of this suggestion, he observes that in 

 the nests of Formica sanguinea, whose pupae spin a silken cocoon 

 and are therefore protected, he has found Atemeles as late as the 

 end of June. He has not been able to satisfy himself whether 

 the larvae of Atemeles are brought up in the ants' nest or not ; 

 but inasmuch as while the Atemeles are far from rare, he has 

 only found among them a single larva which could belong to the 

 species, and even this was not certainly identified, it seems 

 probable that the larval stage is passed elsewhere. 



* Deutsche Eiitom. Zeitschrift. 1886, p. 49. 



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