The Use of Ants to Aphides and Coccidæ

Abstract

MR. COCKERELL'S letter (NATURE, vol. xlvii. p. 608) suggests the possibility that the following fact bearing on the connection between a coccid and another member of the Aculeate Hymenoptera may be interesting. I have a quantity of Cotoneaster microphylla covering a long sunny bank, and this shrub is much infested by a coccid, Secanium ribis. The queen wasps (usually early in June, but this year they are beginning now) are attracted in great numbers by the secretion from the coccid and may be taken with a common ring net and destroyed, to the great advantage of my garden. As to the visits of the wasps being of any advantage to the coccid I am somewhat sceptical, though no doubt they are to the wasps—when they are not caught!