28' 



FASCICULI MALATENSES 



' In the Malay Peninsula it is common everywhere, except in the central 

 jungles and on the hills generally. On Bukit Besar we did not find it above 

 two thousand feet except on one occasion, when two gravid females attempted, 

 without success, to found new colonies in the clearing at two thousand five 

 hundred feet. It is particularly abundant in the sandy wastes round Patani 

 and on the limestone hills near Biserat — both dry localities — and probably 

 cannot stand any great degree of moisture. In these places the nests, which 

 may be either quite near the ground, on stunted bushes, or at the top of jungle 

 trees, attain the dimensions of a football, and several are often found within 

 a radius of a few yards. 



t The habits of the <£ tailor ant," and especially the way in which the 

 larvae are employed in fastening together the leaves out of which the nests are 

 made, have been described by several naturalists, whose observations on the 

 production of silk by the larvae, and on the manner in which they are applied 

 by the workers to any rent in the nest, we can confirm from repeated 

 observation. The food of the species is very varied, consisting partly of other 

 insects and spiders, which the workers can frequently be seen catching at the 

 base of the trees on which their nests occur, and partly of vegetable juices, 

 especially those of fruits like the orange. On the trunks of orange trees bear- 

 ing ripe fruit two streams of workers can often be distinguished, one ascending 

 with their abdomens small and opaque, the other descending with them 

 distended and translucent. In the nests we found Coccidae, probably kept 

 because of the waxy substance they produced, and small spiders which looked 

 white and bleached. In several instances we also discovered black winged ants 

 belonging to other species, though alien workers were not seen. It is hard to 

 avoid the conclusion that these spiders and ants were mere stalled cattle, 

 preserved to be killed for the food of the community at a seasonable time, for 

 we also saw the workers carrying them into the nest. Some doubt may, how- 

 ever, be cast on this view by another observation, namely, that workers 

 belonging to the species Oecophylla smaragdina, but attached to other nests, 

 were seen to be carried in too, apparently without offering resistance or being 

 injured in any way. 



' One of us carried out the following experiment several times over : — 

 He took a worker and placed it on a leaf at the entrance to a nest to which it 

 did not belong. It was immediately surrounded by the workers of that nest, 

 who passed all its limbs through their jaws, quite gently, and then hurried it 

 inside. It offered no resistance. A few minutes later the nest was opened and 

 no trace was found of any worker which had been injured or dismembered. 

 To make the experiment absolutely conclusive the introduced worker should 



