NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 101 



April 3d. 



Mr. Cassin, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Twenty members present. 



The following was offered for publication: Observations on Cha> 

 tetes, etc." By C. Ptominger, M. D. 



April 10 th. 

 Mr. Vaux, Vice President, in the Chair. 



Twenty-nine members present. 



A letter was read from Dr. Gr. Lincecnm, of Texas ; containing a 

 history of the "small black erratic ant," as follows : 



The small black, crooked running ant, socommon in everybody's yard, and 

 on almost every growing twig in spring time and summer, is called, in my 

 catalogue of ant species, the erratic, or crazy ant. He is No. 5 in my notes 

 on the various types of ants. In this species, the formic acid odor is very 

 strong when the ant is crushed. He is quick in his movements, does not 

 make paths, but travels in scattered files, in the same direction, sometimes 

 several hundred yards; moves quickly on a general course, running very 

 crooked the whole route, giving his path a broad range, travelling two or 

 three times the distance to his place of destination. All along the range of 

 their path, at unequal distances, are depots or station-houses, at which they 

 often call as they pass along, giving the whole affair quite a business aspect. 

 Or it may be that what I have denominated depots or station-houses, will turn 

 out, on a more careful investigation, to be a line of regularly constituted and 

 well organized confederate cities, among which there is carried on a rapid 

 and extensive commerce. At any rate, there can be no doubt of the fact that 

 they are engaged in an extensive and well-established, reciprocal intercourse 

 throughout the entire line of their cities. Cripple one of them on the route 

 of his travel, and you produce the wildest excitement, and the invalid will be 

 visited and examined by perhaps 500 of the travelling throng in the course 

 of two or three minutes. If the case is a curable one they work with him 

 until he is on foot again, when he moves onward with the crowd as before. 

 If he dies, they remove him from the range of the great thoroughfare, and 

 business rolls on again. 



They sometimes wage war with the red-headed tree- ant, (he is the No. 4 

 of my catalogue, and may be fully described in some future article), and the 

 conflict is generally quite disastrous. Notwithstanding the fact that they are 

 always able to bring to the field more than ten times the number of their red- 

 headed foe, they often meet with defeat. 



I was spectator to a battle, or rather a field fight, between these two species 

 of ant, that continued four or five hours. Small parties were engaged in the 

 deathly conflict at sunrise, when I first observed them. They were fighting 

 in the wagon road, and their numbers were rapidly increasing. At the time 

 I was called to breakfast, they were in considerable force on both sides, and 

 when I returned I found both armies greatly augmented. Reinforcements 

 were constantly arriving, and the battle was raging over an area of eight to 

 ten feet in diameter. The discipline and modes of battle of the two species 

 are entirely different. The method of attack, by the little black ant, is aimed 

 altogether at the feet and legs of the foe ; and as they greatly outnumber the 

 red heads, by engaging them two or three to one, they succeed in maiming 

 and rendering large numbers of them unfit for service. The red heads seem 



1866.] 



