HONEY ANTS. 



3 6 5 



hollow depression in which fits the petiolar scale. With the aid of a 

 lens it is possible to distinguish below and behind the stomach and 

 gizzard with its .reflected calyx, both of them displaced and flattened 

 against the gastric wall." Forel further states that the gaster is 

 " nearly as fully distended as that of Myrmecocystus nicUic/cr. . . . 

 Locomotion must be almost impossible in this insect. Its appearance 



FIG. 216. Nest crater of Myrmecocystus horti-deorum. About 



(Original.) 



natural size. 



is that of a Myrmecocystus nurse en miniature." P. triineni must 

 therefore represent a stage of repletion intermediate between Freno- 

 lcf>is and Mclophonis on the one hand and Myrmecocystus on the 

 other. 1 



4. t'aiiiponotns in flatus. Lubbock described the worker of this ant 

 in 1880 from specimens taken at Adelaide, Australia. His diagnosis 

 was, however, so imperfect that the insect had to be redescribed by 

 Forel (i886flf). McCook (18826) has also studied and figured this 

 species (1882, Figs. 71 and 74). According to Forel, it "has nothing 



1 During the summer of 1909, Professor Forel showed me in his collection two 

 other African honey ants, which he had recently acquired, namely, Plagiolepis 

 joithcrti.'m \\hichthereplete has a gyn?ecoid thorax, and Acantholcpis abdominaiis. 



