544 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Surface of body smooth and very shining. 



Hairs brown, long, very dense on the head, thorax, and venter; 

 sparser on the dorsal surface of the gaster; legs with long, reddish, 

 suberect hairs. 



Black; funiculi, legs, and borders of gastric segments yellowish 

 brown; genitaha brownish yellow. Wings faintly tinged with brown. 



Type locality.— Southern France. 



Iberian Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, Southern Russia, Aralo- 

 caspian Plain. 



Emery calls attention to the fact that the range of this species is 

 discontinuous, consisting of an eastern and a western region, widely 

 separated from each other, and he admits his inability to detect any 

 differences between eastern and western workers. He has seen male 

 specimens from France and Spain and these agree closely with Ruzsky's 

 description of oriental specimens. Forel, however, is inclined to be- 

 lieve that the eastern and western forms differ somewhat and he there- 

 fore refers at least some of the former to the variety striaticeps. 



124. F. (P.) nasuta var. striaticeps Forel. 



F. (P.) nasuta var. striaticeps Forel, Bull. Soc. Vaud. sci. nat., 1911, ser. 5, 

 47, p. 352, S . 



Worker. Length 3-7 mm. 



Differing from the typical form of 7iasuta from Southern France 

 in having the head finely striated almost as far back as the occiput, 

 and more abundantly punctate. The pubescence is also more dis- 

 tinct and more abundant, but nevertheless variable. Color paler 

 and more brownish. The typical form of the species is a little smaller, 

 almost devoid of pubescence and has only the clypeus and a part of the 

 front striated; this sculpture, too, is usually feebler and the punctua- 

 tion sparser. 



Type locality.— Vicinity of Salonica. 



Bulgaria, Tiflis, and the Caucasus. 



Should further study prove that all the smoother eastern forms of 

 nasuta belong to nasuta, the name striaticeps would have to be re- 

 placed by aerca, since Roger's types of this form came from Greece. 



Forel states that the nests of striaticeps are feebly populated and 

 that they are excavated in the earth of rather dry fields or in rocky 

 places. The workers, which leave the nests at infrequent intervals, 

 often return with the gaster much distended with liquid food after 

 the manner of the species of Prenolepis. 



