248 
LYCAENIDAE 
meeting. If it is wandering at the time, it instantly stops; 
but if the ant leaves it only for a moment, it resumes its 
journey. 
As soon as an ant meets the larva, it at once begins caressing 
it and at the same time closes its jaws and starts " milking ” 
it, i.e. imbibing the beads of liquid from the gland ; the 
number of beads exuded during the subsequent courtship is 
extraordinary* At intervals, the ant leaves the larva and 
walks round again and again, returning each time to caress 
and 41 milk ” it. This performance often lasts for an hour or 
more. Finally, by some mystic sense, M. avion prepares itself 
to be carried off by the ant. It gives the ant a signal by assum¬ 
ing a very extraordinary attitude ; it swells up the thoracic 
segments while the rest of its body remains normal. The 
ant receiving the signal, gets well astride the larva, seizes it 
in its jaws between the third and fourth segments imme¬ 
diately behind the hunch, and at once starts off with its burden 
at a quick pace. The journey may be long or short, but all 
obstacles in their path are overcome, and they finally dis¬ 
appear down one of the entrances of the nest. It may happen 
that the ant may not see the signal when the hunch is made. 
I saw it repeated four times before it was noticed by the ant 
when it was an inch away facing an opposite direction. The 
individual ant which first finds the larva is always the one 
to remain in attendance and carry it away, although many 
other ants may find it and stay by it, and even “ milk it; 
they, however, soon depart and leave it to the original atten¬ 
dant, who apparently informs them their services are not 
needed. 
Upon arrival at the entrance of the nest, where it may 
meet one or two other ants, which, after saluting it, make 
way for its passage, it descends with its burden into the dark 
depths of the nest. The larva there and then enters into its 
strange new existence and partakes of its first meal of the 
strange new pabulum, viz. an ant larva of very small size. 
For the following five or six weeks it rapidly grows, feeding on 
the ant larvae, until it has trebled its size, and vastly changed 
in appearance since being carried into the nest, being now a 
fat, fleshy-white, grub-like larva. At the approach of winter 
it settles down for hibernation in a cavity, or chamber, deep 
