202 Mr. G. A. James Rothney's 
favourite old haunt I found abundant evidence of a 
special cleaning and furbishing up for the benefit of the 
new Viceroy; the whole place had been freshly and 
heavily gravelled (soorkied) and rolled ; the seats under 
the shade of the wide-spreading branches were radiant 
with new paint ; everything had been done to make it 
attractive for Government House, but unpleasant for 
ants ; but after a glance round — though for the time 
driven from the main-trunk — there were my old friends 
strongly established, and in force, round several of the 
smaller trunks and stems; under all these difiBculties 
they had cluug to their home, and the evidence of the 
attachment to this particular spot is the stronger from 
the fact that during my residence in India I had 
never found another nest of this ant in Barrackpore 
or its immediate neighbourhood. In all probability 
fodiens will hold her own in the same position for another 
score of years, and successfully brave the terrors of 
many a Vice-regal spring cleaning; or, indeed, there 
seems to be no reason why the colony should not last 
as long as the tree itself. 
Monomorium salomonis, Lin., r. indicum, Forel, in litt. 
This ant is one of the commonest and most widely- 
distributed in India, and she is generally a busy httle 
harvester. A day spent in Poena enabled me to appre- 
ciate the force of Mr. Wroughton's remark, that ^^It 
would be quite safe to affirm that a specimen could be 
found within fifty yards of any spot in any grass land in 
the Poena districts.^' 
It is fairly common in Madras ; it is to be found all 
along the bullock-road from Nagarcoil to Tinnevelly, and 
on all the railway stations from Tinnevelly to Madras, and 
again from Lahore down to Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, Jhansi, 
Bhopal, as far as Itarsi, where I lost sight of her for the 
time. I did not find a specimen in Bombay or Calicut, 
in Cochin or Travancore, and in Calcutta and Barrack- 
pore it is certainly rare ; but in all these places Solen- 
opsis geminata (v. armata) is either very common or 
swarms, and from this 1 am inclined to think that one 
species takes up the duties, whatever they may be, per- 
formed by the other, each in her own particular range, 
salomonis preferring a dry heat and a fiery soil, and 
geminata a moist, damp heat, with a rich earthy soil ; 
