I92I. Phillips. — Nests of the Ant Stenamma Wcstwoodi. 127 



usually in the centre when the stone was flat ; or in the 

 most inaccessible place when the stone was angular. The 

 structure of the nest was similar in all cases ; a central 

 chamber roughly circular or oblong, usually about one 

 inch across and a quarter of an inch in depth, with a few 

 short side-galleries leading into subterranean passages, the 

 whole roofed by the stone and covering a space of not 

 more than two and a half inches square. 



The central chamber, in which the young brood lies 

 and is tended by the workers, is very carefully prepared, 

 its floor being clean and level and coated with a thin 

 bluish-grey material which, seen through a lens, has the 

 appearance of a minute web-like fungus. We failed to 

 trace any means of communication between the nest and 

 the outside world, but it seems certain that the exit and 

 ventilation are through one or more of the narrow under- 

 ground tunnels. 



When a nest is disturbed the workers wander slowly 

 around, some seizing the larvae and carrying them singly 

 or in bunches underground in a leisurely deliberate fashion. 



No myrmecophiles were seen in the nests, but in a 

 side-chamber in one we found three seeds of the Wood 

 Sorrel [Oxalis Acetosella), and three eggs each of a different 

 small snail, ^ neatly placed in a row. In another we found 

 the remains of a beetle-larva that had probably been 

 devoured by the ants, which apparently are carnivorous, as 

 Mr. Donisthorpe, who now has a colony under observation 

 in an artificial nest, writes, " they do not seem to care for 

 honey, but eat dead flies, dragging them into the inner 

 chambers of the nest." The only other ants seen in the 

 wood were one colony of Myrmica ruginodis and a single 

 stray specimen of Donisthorpea mixta, but these were not 

 close to the nests of Stenamma. That the nesting habits 

 of Stenamma W-estwoodi differ in many ways from those of 

 other British ants is evident from these notes, butjmach 

 further and more detailed observation is necessary to 

 elucidate the full life-history of the species. 



Gardiner's Hill, Cork. 



^ Possibly belonging to Vityina pellucida, Hyalinia alliaria and 

 Helix rotundata. 



A 2 



