Chapter V: Appendix: A

The following are the species of ants which I have observed on the Riviera, and principally at Mentone; the actual locality where my notes were taken being given in every case.

_Family Formicidæ._[41]

[Footnote 41: Ants have been divided into three tribes, the two first of which, _Formicineæ_ and _Ponerineæ_, are distinguished by the latter having a contraction in the abdomen not found in the former, and both are separated from the third tribe, _Myrmicineæ_ by having but a single scale on the petiole, while in _Myrmicineæ_ there are always two nodes or protuberances on the petiole. It is important to remember the difference between the first and the last named tribes, as we shall find that all the true harvesters belong to _Myrmicineæ_. I have not seen any of the representatives of the second tribe in the south.]

_Tribe Formicineæ._--Petiole (or stalk which unites the thorax and the abdomen) of one joint, and furnished with a single vertical scale, abdomen not contracted.

(1) _Formica fusca_, Linn.--A rather large ant (3-1/2 to 4-1/2 lines long), of a blackish ash colour, with a satiny sheen on the upper half of the abdomen. Smells of formic acid when crushed. Lives upon sweet secretions and animal matter, and occasionally carries a very few seeds into its nest, which is made in the ground. (Mentone.)

(2) _F. emarginata_, Latr.--Of medium size (2-1/2 lines), brownish, with yellow thorax. Has a strong smell of honey when crushed. Lives principally upon sweet secretions, but occasionally carries a very few seeds also. Nest in the ground. (Mentone.)

(3) _F. (Camponotus) cruentata_, Lat.--Large (5 to 6 lines), dusky brown, with orange red on legs and abdomen. Strong smell of formic acid. Lives on sweet secretions and animal matter, and has never been seen by me carrying seeds. Nest in the ground. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(4) _F. (Camponotus) marginata_, Latr.--Large (4 to 5-1/2 lines), black. Has no perceptible smell even when crushed. Lives principally on sweet secretions, and does not bring in seeds to its nest, which is made in the ground. I have seen this ant at Cannes ascending the cork oaks in search of certain cocci which resemble black and shining berries rather larger than a pea, and which exude sweet secretions. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(5) _Formica cursor_, Fonscol.--A rather large but slender ant (3 to 4 lines long), nearly black, with a faint bronzy hue, legs very long. Smell not noted. Runs very swiftly, and is hard to catch; feeds on sweet secretions, and does not carry seeds. Nest in ground. (Cannes.)

(6) _F._ (species undetermined).--A large ant (5 to 6-1/2 lines), black brown with yellow thorax and legs. In shape resembles _F. marginata_. Strong smell of formic acid. Habits not observed. Nest found under a stone in a pine wood. (Cannes.)

(7) _F._ (species undetermined).--A rather large ant (3 to 4-1/2 lines), resembling _F. fusca_, but having the thorax yellow. Strong smell of formic acid. Feeds on sweet secretions, and does not carry seeds. Nest in ground. (Cannes.)

(8) _Formica (Tapinoma) erratica_, Latr.--Rather small (2 lines), nearly black. Has a strong and most disagreeable smell, something like rancid oil, which is emitted if the nest is disturbed or the insect crushed. Lives upon sweet secretions and animal matter, but rarely if ever carries seeds, and pays no attention to them if placed in its path. It nests in the ground, and forms superficial covered ways, roofed in with a thin crust of earth and vegetable fibres cemented together. (Mentone, Cannes.)

_Tribe Myrmicineæ_. Petiole two jointed, furnished with two nodes (protuberances).

(9) _Crematogaster (Myrmica) scutellaris_, Oliv.--Of medium size (3-1/2 to 4 lines), nearly black, with yellowish red head. Disagreeable smell like rancid oil when crushed. Erects the abdomen when excited, and runs about with it turned up at right angles to the body. Lives on sweet secretions, and does not carry seeds. When dissecting the abdomen of this ant, I noticed that in freshly killed specimens a drop of poison appears at the extremity of the sting, which if brushed away will form again several times in succession. Nest in the bark and wood of sick or decayed trees. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(10) _C. sordidulus_, Mayr.--Very small (1-1/2 to 2 lines), resembles _C. scutellaris_, but is uniformly black brown. No perceptible smell. Lives on sweet secretions, and may frequently be seen inside flowers. Nest in earth. Behaves like _C. scutellaris_ when excited. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(11) _Myrmica cæspitum_, Latr.--Small (2 lines), brown. Faint smell like peat smoke. Feeds on animal food and sweet secretions, and may occasionally be seen collecting and carrying in seeds. Nest in the ground. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(12) _Pheidole (Atta or Myrmica) megacephala_.--Very small (1-1/2 to 2 lines), yellow, the larger workers having enormous heads. Smell very peculiar, and a trifle like aniseed when crushed. Appears to be a true harvester, and not to seek for sweet secretions. Nest in ground. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(13) _Ph. (Atta or Myrmica) pallidula_.--Very small (1-1/2 lines), pale yellow, closely resembles _Ph. megacephala_, but is paler and more transparent, and the larger workers have less disproportionate heads. Smell not noted. Habits not fully observed. Nest in ground. (Mentone.)

(14) _Atta (Aphenogaster or Myrmica) structor_.--Rather large (2 to 4 lines), of a claret brown. No smell when crushed. A true harvester, and does not appear to seek for sweet secretions, though it will occasionally take animal food. Nest in ground or under stones. (Mentone and Cannes.)

(15) _Atta (Aph. or Myrmica) barbara_.--Rather large (2 to 4 lines), jet black. No smell when crushed. Habits of _structor_. Nest in earth, and more frequently in uncultivated ground. I have twice seen a few ants coloured like _structor_ in colonies of _barbara_. (Mentone, Cannes, and Marseilles.)

(16) _Atta (Aph. or Myrmica) barbara_ var.--A large ant (3 to 6 lines). The larger workers black, with red or mahogany-coloured heads, the smaller most frequently black, and like those of _Atta barbara_, of which this is probably only a variety. It differs however in its smell, which, when the body is crushed, resembles that of _Pheidole megacephala_, and is something like aniseed. Habits of _structor_ and _barbara_. Nest in earth. On one occasion I opened a large nest at Cannes, where the colony was composed in about equal parts of ants which in colour and appearance might be said to represent the three forms, _structor_, _barbara_, and the red-headed variety of the latter. There were also a few ants with pale yellowish brown heads. (Mentone and Cannes.)

B.

The following Indian species are described by the late Dr. Jerdon as harvesters, in the Madras Journal Lit. and Sc. 1851:--

(p. 45). _Atta rufa._--"Its favourite food is dead insects and other matter, but it also carries off seeds like the _Œcodoma_, chaff," &c. &c. (p. 46). _Œcodoma providens._--"Their common food I suspect to be animal matter, dead insects, &c. &c., which at all events they take readily, but they also carry off large quantities of seeds of various kinds, especially light grass seeds, and more especially garden seeds, as every gardener knows to his cost. They will take off cabbage, celery, radish, carrot, and tomato seeds, and in some gardens, unless the pots in which they are sown be suspended or otherwise protected, the whole of the seeds sown will be removed in one night. I have also had many packets of seeds (especially lettuce) in my room completely emptied before I was aware that the ants had discovered them. I do not know, however, if they eat them or feed their larvæ on them, though for what other purpose they carry them off I cannot divine. I have often observed them bring the seeds outside their holes, as recorded by Colonel Sykes, and this I think generally at the close of the rainy season; but in some cases I had reason to believe that it was merely the husks, of which I have seen quite heaps, and that the ants did not take them back to their nests. If any of the forementioned seeds be sown out at once in a bed, most likely in the morning the surface of the whole spot will be found covered over with little ridges, the works of these creatures, and the few seeds that perhaps remain, dug all round, and being carried off sometimes above ground, at other times under ground. Their galleries and subterranean passages are often very extensive, and it is no easy matter to dig down to their nest to see what becomes of the seeds." _Œcodoma diffusa_ has the same habits as _Œ. providens_.

Lieut.-Col. Sykes, _Descriptions of New Indian Ants_ in _Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond._, i. 103 (1836).

_Atta providens_, Sykes. "In illustration of the habits of this species of ant, I shall give the following extract from my diary:--'Poona, June 19, 1829. In my morning walk I observed more than a score of little heaps of grass-seeds (_Panicum_) in several places on uncultivated land near the parade-ground; each heap contained about a handful. On examination, I found they were raised by the above species of ant, hundreds of which were employed in bringing up the seeds to the surface from a store below; the grain had probably got wet at the setting in of the monsoon, and the ants had taken advantage of the first sunny day to bring it up to dry. The store must have been laid up from the time of the ripening of the grass-seeds in January and February. As I was aware this fact militated against the observations of entomologists in Europe, I was careful not to deceive myself by confounding the seeds of a _Panicum_ with the pupæ of the insect. Each ant was charged with a single seed, but as it was too weighty for many of them, and as the strongest had some difficulty in scaling the perpendicular sides of the cylindrical hole leading to the nest below, many were the falls of the weaker ants with their burdens from near the summit to the bottom. I observed they never relaxed their hold, and with a perseverance affording a useful lesson to humanity, steadily recommenced the ascent after each successive tumble, nor halted in their labour until they had crowned the summit, and lodged their burden on the common heap.'"

(p. 104). "On the 13th of October of the same year, after the closing thunderstorms of the monsoon, I found this species in various places similarly employed as they had been in June preceding; one heap contained a double handful of grass-seeds. It is probable that the _Atta providens_ is a field species of ant, as I have not observed it in the houses."

C.

After the appearance of a brief notice of a communication which I sent in the winter of 1871-72 to the London Entomological Society, announcing the fact that certain ants harvest seeds in a systematic way at Mentone, two papers were published, in which confirmatory evidence of the existence of the habit in other parts of the world was set forth--one by Mr. Buchanan White, and the other by the late Mr. Horne.

Mr. Horne's account of his observations was published in _Hardwicke's Science Gossip_, No. 89, p. 109 (for May 1, 1872), and runs as follows:[42]--

"My notes carry me to the far East, where I have often watched this most interesting class of insects, and briefly recorded my observations--unfortunately cut short by illness, and the necessity of return to Europe, which must be my apology for their want of completeness.

[Footnote 42: I omit the preliminary portion, in which my observations are erroneously stated to have been made at Nismes and Capri.]

"But before transcribing, I would remind my general reader that all ants may be seen carrying off food to their nests for present consumption, and that this food consists of a great variety of substances. This is disposed of inside the said nest, being often masticated, and the juice extracted by the workers, and then given in an inspissated form from their mouths to the young grubs, which are in general tended by their nurses with the greatest care. It is indeed very curious to watch this feeding process; but to proceed.

"Under date Nov. 7th, 1866, I find in my natural history note-book as follows:--Mainpuri. This morning as I was walking across the 'Oosur,' or waste plain, where it was very sandy, being cut into small ravines, and clothed only here and there with fine grass disposed in clumps, thus forming little hillocks of sand blown by the wind, and arrested in its course by the grass, I came across a long line of ants, travelling four deep, some coming empty, and others laden each with one grass-seed, on their way home.

"I followed up the procession to the nest, which was subterranean, and at the mouth of which on the level plain there was no trace of elevation caused by the soil brought up from below, owing to the habit of these ants of taking each grain of sand to some distance along their road, and depositing it on one side or the other.

"There may have been five or six entrances to the nest, in and out of which a prodigious number of ants were passing, the species of which has been described by Dr. Jerdon. They were of a medium size, shortish bodies, and of a reddish-brown colour--_Pseudomyrma rufo-nigra_, Jerdon. Around the mouth of the nest, forming a circle of perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, was a space beaten flat, and kept clear by these said ants, from which radiated in every direction thirteen roads, each about four inches in width for about thirty to forty yards, when they branched off and became narrower, being ultimately lost amongst the grass roots. These paths were fairly straight; they did not cut through elevations, but went round them.

"From a careful examination it appeared that they had been cleared of all obstacles, such as small stones, twigs, &c., but that their smoothness resulted only from the tread of countless feet.

"The bearers of burdens took the seeds _into_ the nest, which I did not dig up, and certainly stored them there, after having prepared them, probably by the removal of a portion of the outer husk. Of these husks there were large collections near the entrances to the nest, all carefully set aside by the ants.

"In times of famine, I am told, not only are the nests rifled of their grass-seed stores, but these heaps of apparent husks are collected and ground with other grain to eke out a subsistence.

"This kind of grain has a name, 'Jurroon,' derived from 'Jharna,' to sweep, literally sweepings. I much regret that I have not preserved specimens of this 'Jurroon,' for it is very unlikely that the ants after taking it to their granary, should again throw it out, and yet, if grainless, what benefit could there be in eating it? The season of the year when I observed them (November) is the beginning of the cold weather, and no rain would probably fall (excepting a little at Christmas) till next May or June. Later on seed would be rare; and how the nest fares at a time when floods of water often pass over the plain I cannot conceive.

"It is clear that some escape, and we know with what prodigious rapidity these colonies increase. But these jottings have been recorded merely to show how this species of ant store grain against a time of scarcity, and fully bear out the statement in the text with which I commenced this paper."

The following are Dr. Buchanan White's notes, alluded to above, published in the _Transactions of the Entomological Society_ (London, 1872) part i., Proceedings, p. v.:--

"Capri, June 3, 1866. In the afternoon to the Punta Tragara, where a colony of ants afforded us much amusement. These little insects had a regular road, made by cutting away the grass and other plants in their way. This road was about one inch and a half wide, and several yards long, and led to a clump of plants in seed. Along this road a long train of ants were perpetually travelling to the nest (or _formicarium_), bearing with them pods of leguminous plants, seeds of grass and of Composites (_Chrysanth. segetum_), &c.

"The perseverance with which a single ant would tug and draw a pod four times his own length was very interesting; sometimes three or four ants would unite in carrying one burden. Near the formicarium was a great mass of débris, consisting of empty pods, twigs, emptied snail shells, &c., cast out by the ants. The seeds appeared to be stored inside the nest, as in one that I opened the other day I found a large collection. The species was a black ant; the formicarium was underground."

D.

_On Collecting and Examining Ants._

There are very few branches of natural history which might be more easily followed by a traveller, or one who fears to encumber himself with bulky collections difficult to transport from place to place, than the study of ants. The whole European ant fauna might be adequately represented by specimens preserved in spirit of wine and packed in the compass of a hat-box.

In taking specimens of ants it is important never to put the representatives of more than one nest in each bottle, but then in most cases a sufficient number may be placed in a single bottle of the size used for containing the smaller homœopathic globules. If possible the winged male and female ants, as well as the wingless workers, should be secured.

The ants die very quickly in pure spirit of wine, and they can afterwards, even after the lapse of months or more, be pinned out in the cabinet after having been washed in warm water. In examining the mouth organs of an ant in order to determine by the aid of books to what genus it belongs, it is best to relax the parts by first washing away the spirit of wine, and then leaving the specimen for a day or more in a stopper bottle partly filled with finely chopped laurel leaves. It is probable that a drop or two of prussic acid on a bit of sponge might act as effectually in rendering the tissues pliable.

A compound microscope is necessary for the final examination of the joints of the labial and maxillary palpi (see Fig. D 2, Plate I., p. 21); but the neuration of the wing (D 1, Plate I.), another very important character, is easily detected with a good pocket-lens.

The works which may most usefully be consulted are, for France, M. Nylander's _Formicides de France et d'Algérie_, published in vol. v. of the fourth series of the Zoological Division of the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_; for England, Mr. F. Smith's _Catalogue of British Fossorial Hymenoptera_ (1856); and for a more general review of the species in the world at large, Mr. F. Smith's _Catalogue of Hymenopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum_, Part vi., _Formicidæ_ (1858), and M. Mayr's _Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Ameisen_, published in the _Verhandlungen des Zoologisch-botanischen Vereines in Wien_, iii. 1853. _Abhandlungen_ (p. 101).

PART II.

TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS.