222 WHEELER. 



development of the terminal antennal. joint, the large eyes and the 

 sharp lateral border of the petiole and often also of the postpetiole, 

 are minor characters, they seem to be sufficiently constant to enable 

 one to separate the species readily from those of Ccrapachys and its 

 subgenera. IVIoreover, at least the great majority of species of Cera- 

 pachys sens. lat. are hypogfeic, whereas those of the genus Phyracaces 

 forage on the surface of the ground. 



Some meager notes on Parasyscia augustos which I published many 

 years ago, have remained up to the present time the only account of 

 the habits of a Cerapachyine ant. During my sojourn in Australia 

 I was able to gain a few additional glimpses of the behavior of one 

 species of Eusphinctus and of several species of Phyracaces. My 

 brief field notes on these insects may be here transcribed : 



Nov. 30, 1914, I found a fine colony of Ensphincius steinhcili under 

 a large log which was rather deeply embedded in sand in the bottom 

 of a ravine at Hornsby, New South Wales. The colony, which com- 

 prised about 200 workers and females, was crowded into a few small 

 burrows in the sand, with a large number of nearly full-grown larvae. 

 Dr. Mann found three smaller colonies of this species during Decem- 

 ber, 1916, at Leura in the Blue Mts., Sydney and Wentworth Falls, 

 N. S. W. One of these also contained adult larvpe but no pupte. 



Sept. 16, at Southerland, New South Wales, I found a colony of 

 about 70 workers and one wingless female of Phyracaces elegans sp. 

 nov. huddled together in a mass under a block of sand-stone in a thin 

 layer of soil which in turn was lying on the hard sandstone wall of 

 one of the deep gorges so characteristic of the country about Sydney. 

 As there was no brood in the colony and as it had rained heavily the 

 preceding day, I inferred that the ants were merely bivouacking after 

 having been washed out of their nest. 



Sept. 19, a fine colony of about 50 workers of Phyracaces Jarvatus 

 sp. nov. was found under a small stone in one of the deep sandstone 

 ravines near Katoomba in the Blue ]Mts. of New South Wales. 



Oct. 18. Near Cairns, Queensland, I happened on about a dozen 

 workers of Ph. fcrvidus sp. nov. running rapidly over a patch of sand 

 in the open forest. They mo\'ed much like workers of Lobopelta. 

 Two of them entered a nest of Phcidolc but soon returned to the sur- 

 face and continued foraging. 



Oct. 19. A few workers of Ph. turneri Forel were seen running about 

 on dead leaves in the dark, tropical "scrub" at Kuranda, Queensland. 

 The nest was not discovered. 



Oct. 25. In the same locality and also in the tropical "scrub" I 



