NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 331 



to work for her, when she ceases to labor, and, remaining in-doors, lays all the 

 eggs that produce the coming millions. The laborers are long-lived, so are the 

 queens. 



28th. I extract from my journal : This morning I found the males where 1 

 left them last evening. The greater portion of them were still active, and 

 seemed to be quite careless as to their fate. Hundreds were dead or dying. 

 Great numbers had climbed up the little weeds, many of whom were dead, but 

 still clinging by their jaws, which were fast gripped to some little leaf or twig. 

 The females had buried themselves by the time it was dark last night, and, 

 closing up their holes, remained shut in all night. But few of them had opened 

 their doors and gone to- work at an hour by sun this morning. The number of 

 their holes is truly wonderful. I saw many places where there were at least 

 fifty of their holes to the square rod, and northwardly they extended for miles. 

 When these mother ants succeed in boring their holes to the depth of six or 

 seven inches they close them up, and employ themselves widening the bottom 

 of them a little, forming small cells for the purpose, as I suppose, of making 

 room for the deposition of their eggs. They do not, as I can discover, need 

 any food yet. At 5 P. M. of this day I visited the place again, and found the 

 male ants all dead. They were drifted into the gullies by the winds into 

 heaps, and thousands of them besides lay scattered over the ground. Some of 

 the females were still engaged deepening their holes, and their little piles of 

 black dirt were to be seen everywhere. 



29th Jul;/. A month has passed. I went round to-day and found that, in 

 all those thousands of female ants, who made so brave a start excavating new 

 homes, there was but one that was a success, and it was concealed with a little pile 

 of trash. There may be more, but I did not find them, and the winds have swept 

 away their little piles of dirt, so that there are no signs of them left. From 

 some cause they are all gone. Eight or ten days after they had shut up their 

 holes I dug up quite a number of them ; found them looking well, but they 

 had no eggs or anything else in the little cell. They seemed to be sleeping. 



I have never witnessed similar assemblages in any other species of ant, 

 though I have seen it often take place with the agricultural species. 



Long Point, Texas, Oct., 1866. 



Descriptions of some new species of Diurnal LEPIDOPTERA, 



Series II. 

 BY TRYON REAKIRT. 



26. Neonympha lupita, nov. sp. 



Female. Upper surface uniform dull brown, with a narrow, double, darker 

 brown, marginal line. 



Underneath paler ; three narrow terminal lines on both wings, of which 

 the interior is the broadest, and most clearly defined ; a minute black ocellus 

 near the apex of the primaries, ringed with pale brown ; three transverse 

 brown stripes on the same, between the middle and base ; two extending 

 from the costa to the inner margin, while the third and central one stretches 

 over only one-third this distance. 



Secondaries with three submarginal ocelli, black, encircled with yellowish 

 brown, one near their apex, and the others close together, above the anal 

 angle ; three indistinct transverse lines above the middle, with several shortev 

 ones towards the base. Expanse 1*25 inches. 



Body of the same dull tint ; antennae ferruginous. 



Hub. "Mexico, near Vera Cruz." Win. H. Edwards. 

 Orizaba. (Coll. Tryon Reakirt. ) 



27. Papilio asterioides, nov. sp. 



Mile. Upper surface black, marked nearly as in Asterius ; the inner yellow 



18(56.] 



