PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



75 



showed me a whole row of specimens from which he begged 

 me to select at pleasure, all of which, if I recollect right, he 

 had obtained from one ant's nest. It is probable that another 

 species of Claviger (C. longicornis,) which M. Robert found 

 also in an ant's nest, is made a similar use of by them. 



One of the singular circumstances in the history of ants, and 

 which requires further explanation, is, that besides the two 

 beetles just named, many other species of the same tribe, 

 mostly of small size, are also found in their nests, and so con- 

 stantly, that it cannot arise from accident. My friend M. 

 Chevrolat of Paris, who has been more successful in procuring 

 new and rare coleopterous insects from this habitat than 

 perhaps any other entomologist, has obtained the greatest 

 number from the nests of Formica rufa Latr., in which he 

 has found Lomechusa strumosa and dentata, a new species of 

 Xantholinus, Dendrophilus pygmceus Payk., D. formicetorum 

 Aube, and D. Guerini Chevr., and Monotonia conicollis, and 

 M. formicetorum Chevr. He has also found several specimens 

 of Lomechusa paradoxa in the nest of Formica cunicularia 

 Latr., and Abrceus globulus Payk., Batrisus formicarius De la 

 Porte, and B. oculatus, and B. venustus Aube, as well as his 

 singular new insect Myrmechixenus subterraneus, in other nests; 

 and M. Reiche has also found Hceterius quadratus in the nest 

 of Myrmica unifasciata, as has Mr. MacLeay a crepitating 

 species of Cerapterus in ants' nests in Australia. 1 Besides the 

 above, M. Chevrolat has observed in some of these ants' nests 

 isolated larvae, as he supposes, of a Clythra, clothed with a 

 case of gluten combined with particles of earth and small 

 stones 2 ; and Mr. Westwood states that he has often found 

 in the nests both of Formicce and Myrmicce many very young 

 specimens of a white colour of a species of Oniscus, of which 

 genus also, M. Lund in Brazil observed many of the ants of 

 a column of Myrmica typhlos to carry each an individual be- 

 neath the abdomen. 3 Thus we have sixteen or seventeen co- 

 leopterous insects of different genera and species, besides one 

 or more species of Oniscus, habitually residing in ants' nests ; 



1 Westwood, Mod. Class of Ins. i. xii. 



2 Silbermann, Revue Entom. iii. 263. 



3 Westwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 234. 



