THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 142,] SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1859 
ANTS’ NESTS. 
The wonders of ants’ nests are not 
yet half explored. Ants’ nests, it is 
true, are systematically searched for 
small Staphylinid®, but your beetle- 
huuter turns over and ignores other 
queer things. The discovery of a Tinea 
(T. ochraceella) peculiar to ants’ nests 
might, one would have thought, have 
stimulated Lepidopterists to further in- 
vestigations; but no, your butterfly- 
hunter belongs to a supine race, and 
it never enters his head to search in 
the nests of Formicid® for a new 
British Noctua. 
The recent announcement that one 
of the Diurnal Lepidoptera has been 
observed in the East Indies to frequent 
ants’ nests, and, though endowed with 
wings, makes no more use of them 
than Tinea ochraceella , may perhaps 
serve as a starting point for further 
discoveries. 
The insect in question was figured 
more than thirty years ago in Dr. Hors- 
field’s work on the ‘Insects of Java’ 
(pi. 2, fig. 2), under the name of 
Symetha Pandu ; and the dissections 
on the plate show the peculiar struc- 
ture of the legs — legs made for use, 
and therefore unlike most legs of 
butterflies. 
[Price Id. 
Dr. Herrich-Schaffer called our at- 
tention lately to the fact of a “ Tag- 
faller” having been discovered which 
took up its residence permanently within 
the nests of ants, and pointed out the 
peculiar structure of the legs ; the ac- 
counts he had received of its habits 
led irresistibly to the conclusion that 
this singular butterfly never disported 
itself on the wing, but wandered list- 
lessly in the labyrinths of the ants’ 
nests. On mentioning the peculiar 
structure of the legs to Mr. Westwood, 
he at once called our attention to the 
plate illustrating Dr. Horsfield’s work, 
and we cannot entertain a doubt that 
Dr. Herrich -Schaffer’s insect will be 
found identical with the Symetha Pandu 
of Horsfield, or at least congenerous 
with it, if the supposition of two species 
of butterfly living in company with ants 
be not deemed too preposterous. 
If a Tinea and if one of the Rhopa- 
locera frequent ants’ nests, it is scarcely 
credible that the Noctuina and Geome- 
trina are yet unrepresented in the for- 
micarium, and though some will no 
doubt shudder at the devastation to 
the ants which would ensue from the 
discovery of a new Noctua or a new 
Geometra in the interior of the domi- 
cile of any of the Formicid®, we cannot, 
as journalists, hesitate to record this 
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