( 199 ) XII. On strididation in ants. By Dr. David Sharp, M.A., F.E.S., F.L.S., &c. [Read March 8th, 1893.] Plate IX. The question whether ants possess definite organs for the production of sound has been discussed by Landois, Lubbock, and one or two others, but no very extensive or decisive evidence has yet been brought forward on the subiect. My object in this paper is to point out tliat many kinds of ants possess very perfect special stridu-lating organs, and that these are not only of very great delicacy, but are accompanied with such perfect articu-lations as to render it probable that the insects by their aid can produce a considerable variety of sounds, and have in all probability much power of modulating these. Landois, in a scarce book called ' Thierstimmen, an-nounced, in a few words in 1874, that an ant he called Po7iera quadndentata possesses a true stndulating organ, and he added that this is also the case with Las ms fuliginosus; shortly afterwards Lubbock, alluding to Landois' discovery, sketched a structure in Lasiusflav us that he thought might possibly be connected with pro-duction of sound. About the same time Swinton men-tioned that he had heard sound produced by Mrymica ruqinodis, and gave a rough sketch of what he thought was the organ for its production. These cases are all that I know of, except a brief allusion by Prof. For el to a structure in a Madagascar Ponerid, Leptogemjsfalci-gera, which, he remarks, may possibly be an organ ot stridulation. , _ -, . . r. The structure first alluded to by Landois m Ponera quadridentata is doubtless a true stridulatmg organ ,^ but what he described in Lasius fuliginosus, and what Lub-bock sketched in Lasius flavus, are not stndulating or^rans, but are merely the sculpture that exists on articulating abdominal surfaces in ants generally. Al-TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1893.— PART II. (JUNE.)
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