May Bl, 1912. The Queensland Naturalist. 
227 
disappeared entirely In fact, only a diminutive black 
ant, one less in size than are they, can live where they are 
present. This is a wood-frequenting insect. Apparently 
dog-, cat- and other heas even have received their attention, 
doubtless being assailed when existing as “grubs” in 
the soil or on floors. Formerly it was considered that they 
would play an important parr in destroying “ cane grubs,” 
the larvae of large scarabaeid beetles, in our plantations ; 
bac finding the two living side by side, this expectation has 
had, in great measure, to be abandoned. 
B'ut notwithstanding this habit, the exercise of which 
occasions such destruction to other insects, it is displayed 
with noteworthy limitations. There is a certain class of 
insects, the members of which not only enjoy immunity 
from their attacks, but are protected by them from other 
would-be enemies, moreover, Pheidole megace'phula even 
tends and cares for them. Unfortunately, these embrace 
some of the worse foes of vegetation, including the Scale 
Insects and the Mealy Bugs, the Aphides and the Plant- 
Hoppers. These latter yield the Ants sweet excretions, that 
they are very partial to, and on which apparently they can 
subsist. Plants often owe their infestation by these sucking 
insects to the ant now under consideration. 
In the dwelling they are wont to infest meat- viands 
especially, and by reason of their small size and large 
numbers, the housewife is often at her wits end in devising 
measures to exclude them. 
It is foitunate that apparently their permanent estab- 
lishment in any one place is determined by prevailing 
meteorological conditions. In the Brisbane District it is 
to be observed that at certain times the surface ot the soil 
that they frequent has distributed over it little heaps of 
brown particles, suggestive of coflee “groundsf’ iliese 
heaps are, on closer inspection, found to consist entirely 
of dead Pheidoles that having died in their nests are carried 
out for hygienic purposes. Xot only does this occtirrence 
indicate the density with which the area occupied is peopled 
by the ant-communities, and the immense number of indi- 
viduals that these comprise ; but it is also suggests to how 
large an extent they fortunately may be controlled by 
nature alone, and that their ultimate range of occurrence is 
dependent on climatic factors.* 
E. B. Kellaway, to whom we are indebted for this exhibit, 
and whose observations confirm in the main what has been 
above stated, has suggested that these heaps of dead ants 
are evidence that Pheidole megacephala is habitually a canni- 
*The exhibit. comprisinE? 98S.466 ants— a number computed by weigh- 
ing— was procured by E. B. Kellaway from a few of the heaps of dead 
individual?. 
