226 
H YMENOPT K H A. 
scavengers and as they are practically everywhere in the open, they 
serve an extremely useful function. In some species this habit is spe¬ 
cialised in one direction ; some are ‘ harvesters,” storing in their nests 
seeds of grasses and small millets, occasionally even that of rice. Hol- 
comyrmex, Messor , Phidologiton and Phidole are the best known harvest¬ 
ing ants and these live entirely in this one manner. In others the 
“agricultural ” habit takes another form and what correspond to our 
“cows” are kept and milked ; the latter are insects which suck the sap 
of plants and yield a sweet excretion which the ants remove ; Mealy bugs 
(Coccidce ), Green Fly (Aphidce ), Psyllidce , Membracidce are the important 
groups of “ cows,” while the larvae of many Lycaenids are attended by 
ants and yield excretion. Camponotus , Cremastogaster , Cataulacus and 
CPcophylla have this habit as part of their activities and the care they 
take of their cattle is in some cases very marked; it is no uncommon 
thing to see a shelter built over a colony of mealy bug, and in South 
India Lecanium formicarii is found only under hard shelters erected 
by ants on trees. Other ants are predaceous and carnivorous, going out 
on foraging expeditions to seek live food, such as insects. Though 
termites live retired, they are attacked violently by some kinds of ants 
(Lohopelta). Rothney states that in Madras, two ants (Monomorium 
salomonis, Linn., and Solenopsis geminata, Fabr.) are deliberately intro¬ 
duced into warehouses to check the depredations of white ants. This 
practice is not uncommon in Northern India and the Natives of India 
are familiar with the kind of ant which should be brought in. The 
Ponerince and Dorylince include hunting ants, 
though one species of Dorylus has also the 
termites’ habit of attacking plants under¬ 
ground. 
The life-history is known in a general 
way but not in detail : the eggs are laid by 
the female and tended by the workers in the 
nest; the larva is a white helpless grub 
Fig. 129. —POLYKHAC'HIS SIM¬ 
PLEX EGG, NYMPH, PUPAL 
and is itself incapable of exertion. These cocoon, x r>. 
larvae and pupae are found in galleries in 
the nests, and one may often see the nest being moved, the little white 
without legs, which is fed by the work 
