(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.