422 



INSECTS. 



[Chap. XII. 



and nearly two feet in length. On these occasions it 

 would seem as if the whole community had been sum- 

 moned and turned out for such a prodigious effort ; they 

 surround their victim literally in tens of thousands, 

 inflicting wounds on all parts, and forcing it along to- 

 wards their nest in spite of resistance. In one instance 

 to which I was a witness, the conflict lasted for the latter 

 part of a day, but towards evening the Coecilia was com- 

 pletely exhausted, and in the morning it had totally 

 disappeared, having been carried away either whole or 

 piecemeal by its assailants. 



The species I here allude to is a very small ant, which 

 the Singhalese call by the generic name of Koombiya, 

 There is a species still more minute, and evidently dis- 

 tinct, which frequents the caraffes and toilet vessels. A 

 third, probably the Formica nidificans of Jerdan, is 

 black, of the same size as that last mentioned, and, from 

 its colour, called the Kalu koombiya by the natives. In 

 the houses its propensities and habits are the same as 

 those of the others ; but I have observed that it fre- 

 quents the trees more profusely, forming small paper 

 cells for its young, like miniature wasps' nests, in which 

 it deposits its eggs, suspending them from a twig. 



The most formidable of all is the great red ant or 

 Dimiya. 1 It is particularly abundant in gardens, and 

 on fruit trees ; it constructs its dwellings by glueing the 

 leaves of such species as are suitable from their shape 

 and pliancy into hollow balls, and these it lines with a 

 kind of transparent paper, like that manufactured by 

 th,e wasp. I have watched them at the interesting oper- 

 ation of forming these dwellings ; — a line of ants stand- 

 ing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact 



1 Formica smaragdina, Fab. 



