iS95.i Notes. 143 



Early Hawthorn. — On 19th April, near Cabinteely, Co. Dublin, I 

 saw a large Hawthorn tree in almost full bloom ; there was nearly as 

 much on the shady side as on that exposed to the sun. From the con- 

 dition of the flowers, it was obvious that some must have been out at 

 least on the 15th inst., if not sooner. Since then I have seen Hawthorn 

 *' May " {sic !) in various other places, including Rutland-square. Is this 

 not almost a record for earliness 1 



Greenwood Pim, Dublin. 

 ZOOLOGY. 



INSECTS. 



Formica rufa, L., In Co. Wexford.— Though I am not a "for- 



micologist" I have been for many years familiar with the large Wood Ant 

 {Formica rufa) as a denizen of old Killoughrim Forest, in the County 

 Wexford ; and I forward this note on seeing that the Rev. W. F. Johnson 

 in the April number of the Irish Naturalist asks for information concerning 

 its Irish localities, and expresses some doubt as to its indigenousness in 

 this country. 



The great size of this ant, its wood-haunting habit, and the remarkable 

 nest, resembling a hay-cock in shape, which it builds of sticks, grass, 

 leaf-stalks, &c. (or pine-needles where these happen to be accessible to 

 it) are sufficiently distinctive, I hope, to guarantee one who has not 

 scientifically studied the order against risk of erroneous identification. 



As to the question of its indigenousness, the character of the habitat 

 is to my mind practically conclusive. Killoughrim Forest — the main 

 remnant of the old naturalwoodof Oak, Birch, Hazel, Holly, Guelder-rose, 

 and Broom, which in bygone years covered a great part of the county — 

 is, so far as I have been able to observe, almost completely free from 

 introduced vegetation, while several of our very local but undoubtedly 

 native insects (as Thecla betuhe and Nisoniades tages) are apparently con- 

 fined to this wood, or occur outside its limits only in a few isolated spots, 

 once part of the forest, that still retain the original sylvan character. It 

 seems most unlikely that the ants would be so thoroughly at home as 

 they are, in such a place as this if the species were an imported one. In 

 fact it has grown into an axiom with me that whatever is in Killoughrim 

 is indigenous. Even the Squirrel, now for six years established and 

 common in all the woods of the adjacent parts, declines to be tempted 

 by the only hazel-nuts the district offers to ground whereon he in- 

 stinctively knows there is neither Beech nor Pine. 



I regret to add that the dense scrub which has sprungup in Killoughrim 

 since the last felling of the oaks ten years ago has so obliterated many of 

 the old pathways and open spaces that it is no longer the easy matter it 

 once was to visit Formica rufa in her haunts. Spots where I have found, 

 I should say, a dozen Wood Ant's hillocks in village-like juxtaposition 

 are now difficult to identify, and besides the ants themselves shift their 

 ground from time to tim e. 



