126 



ANTS. 



the best known portions of entomology." A well-known English 

 livmenopterist of the same period, Frederick Smith, undertook a similar 

 universal stud)' of the ants, basing his descriptions on the numerous 

 specimens from all parts of the world in the collections of the British 

 Museum. Man)- of his species are so inadequately described that the 

 writers of today are obliged either to discard them or to make pilgrimages 

 to the British Museum for the sake of consulting the types from which 

 they were drawn, and while some of his species bear appropriate or 

 even elegant names, and have been identified after much labor with a 

 fair degree of certainty, his generic distinctions give evidence of de- 

 ficient classificatory sense. 



During the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century a considerable number of local Euro- 

 pean ant faunas were published and our knowl- 

 edge of the ants of other lands grew apace. 

 Acllerz studied the ants of Sweden ; Ernest 

 Andre of France, Europe and North Africa: 

 Bos, Meinert and \Yasmann of the Nether- 

 lands ; Curtis, Saunders and F. Smith of Eng- 

 land ; Forel of Switzerland; Emery of Italy; 

 Gredler of Tyrol ; Nassonow and Ruzsky of 

 Russia ; Schenck and Forster of Germany, 

 while some accomplished entomologists like 

 Roger, Gerstaecker, Shuckard and Westwood 

 evinced a greater interest in the exotic genera 



and species. Nor was this activity confined to 

 FIG. 70. Worker of J 



Cardiocondyla vemtstitia the recent ants. Heer, Mayr, Emery, Ernest 

 of Porto Rico. (Origi- Andre and others published descriptions of 



many fossil species preserved in the Baltic and 

 Sicilian ambers and in the strata of Oeningen and Radoboj. 



Among this group of diligent investigators two are facile principes, 

 Emery and Forel. In 1874 Forel published at a remarkably early age 

 what must always be regarded as one of the finest natural histories of 

 any group of insects, the " Fourmis de la Suisse," a work to which the 

 student must constantly turn both for information and encouragement. 

 Emery and Forel, who both began to publish in 1869 and have con- 

 tinued ever since to make important contributions to our knowledge, 

 combine an excellent zoological and philosophical training with rare 

 judgment and acumen. Building on the excellent foundations laid 

 by Latreille, Nylander and Mayr, they have been able to make our 

 knowledge of the ants more complete than that of any other family of 

 the vast Hymenopteran order. Not only have they perfected the 



