28 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
with such success as yours, and recom- 
mended by a person of your entomological 
status, I feel confident the system will be 
disastrous to the occupants of the nests, 
both Hymenopterous and Coleopterous. 
Such examinations of ants’ nests as you 
mention, when done tenderly, at this time 
of the year, may not produce much mis- 
chief, but if often repeated, at a more 
advanced season, when their different 
chambers are completed and occupied by 
larvae and pupae in their various stages, 
requiring various degrees of warmth, how 
are these conditions to be ensured if the 
hands of all the Myrmecophilous Cole- 
opterists of the 1 Great Babylon ’ are to 
be ‘ boldly thrust’ into the nests of their 
pets, overturning the pillars and divisions 
of their house, letting in the roof, and 
putting all in confusion ? This is what 
must occur if done in your style, and 
with the most gentle hands : what will 
be the fate of colonies operated upon by 
‘roughs?’ It will be no less than spoli- 
ation, and you must be prepared for such 
scenes to be common, and all nearly equal 
to the Highgate performance, which must 
necessarily make Myrmecophilous Cole- 
optera first ‘ common,’ soon ‘ rare: ’ who is 
there but laments the condition ‘of the 
light loamy bank ? ’ Now this is no fault 
of one or two persons, but the fault of a 
system, and I very much regret that you 
should have identified yourself with a 
system you may feel to be harmless, but 
which I think will soon prove other- 
wise.” The foregoing is an extract from 
a letter I have received from a well-known 
collector, and as every subject is better for 
being seen on both sides, I have requested 
and received the writer’s permission to 
publish his remarks. I am the last person 
to advocate the wanton destruction of any 
creatures, and in this case the disastrous 
consequences of the “system,” I cannot 
but think, are greatly overstated, for 
I have seen nests of Formica rufa tho- 
roughly and repeatedly stirred up by 
boys, and yet the ants flourished after- 
wards as much as ever. It is so clearly 
the interest of the collector not to destroy 
the nests, that I think no one will do that 
which will produce such an effect, but 
even if, regardless of consequences, any 
one were willing to exterminate the ants, 
I doubt if they would let him, so pertina- 
cious and formidable are their attacks 
directly the weather gets warm. The 
solicitude recently evinced for the welfare 
of ants seems to me to be very singular. 
Water-beetles are taken out of their ele- 
ment by hundreds, moths are attracted 
to sugar and sacrificed by thousands, 
nay, whole broods of caterpillars are 
reared from the eggs, only that they may 
furnish “ fine specimens” for collections, 
and not a word is said. But these sepoys 
of ants, the terror of all other insects, 
whose haunts and homes are strewed 
with the mangled remains of their vic- 
tims, are selected and recommended to 
our special care and attention; why, it 
would be difficult to state, unless the 
sympathy for them be of that morbid 
kind which is exercised towards the 
greatest offenders. Certainly there is 
nothing in the manners of these ants to 
give them a preference in our affections 
over all other insects, and if it is wrong 
to hurt or disturb them, what may not 
other insects so remorselessly hunted 
complain of? But, gentlemen, be con- 
soled: it is not necessary to do more 
than to take up and examine the loose 
bits of stick at the outside of the nest. I 
said before that my first handful was the 
best, and I have proved that the most of 
the beetles are to be obtained from the 
loose matter which the ants have carried 
up, and which it can do no harm to re- 
move and replace. At (his second search 
I took all the species I got on the first 
occasion, except the Othius, and in addi- 
tion 
Quedius brevis .... 3 
Monotomu angusticollis . 3 
„ conieollis . . 3 
— J. W. Douglas, Lee; April 17. 
