1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 251 



petiole hardly Ij times as broad as the petiole. The white hairs on the 

 body are non-clavate, though those on the pedicel and gaster are 

 somewhat thickened. Head, thorax and pedicel yellowish-red or 

 dark-red, their upper surfaces more or less infuscated. Gaster black. 

 Antennal scape black with basal half yellow; first joint of funiculus and 

 club black, remaining joints yellow. Legs colored like those of the 

 worker. Wings milky-white, veins yellow ; stigma brown, conspicuous. 



Male. — Length 1.5-2 mm. 



Head as long as broad, exclusive of the mandibles ; cheeks very short. 

 Mandibles meeting with their tips. Clypeus convex, truncated in 

 front. Antennse slender; 13-jointed; scape nearly as long as the first 

 five joints of the fiagellum; first flagellar joint thickened, nearly as 

 long as the three following joints together; joints 2-8 of the fiagellum 

 cylindrical, as long as broad; the four terminal joints forming a club, 

 of which the three basal joints are subequal in length but increase 

 somewhat in thickness distally; terminal joint much larger, distinctly 

 longer than the two preceding joints. Epinotum with two very in- 

 conspicuous thickenings in the place of the spines. Petiole and post- 

 petiole similar in shape to the corresponding segments of the worker, 

 node of former very low. 



Clypeus shining, with a few reticulate rugse forming rather large 

 meshes. Head, thorax and pedicel opaque, finely and evenly reticu- 

 late-rugose. Mesonotum sparsely foveolate-punctate and traversed 

 by a narrow, smooth, longitudinal stripe. Pleurse shining in part. 

 Gaster smooth and shining. 



Hairs white, sparse, non-clavate, most abundant on the thoracic 

 dorsum, pedicel and gaster. 



Black; pleural and pedicel more piceous. Mandibles, legs and 

 antennse white; the mandibles w^ith brown edges, the antennse with 

 scape, second joint and club blackened; legs with the coxse, middle of 

 the femora and tibise and the last tarsal joint blackened. 



Type locality: Austin, Tex. 



Described from many specimens collected at different times from 

 the abandoned Holcaspis cinerosus galls on the live-oaks {Q. vir- 

 giniana). The young fertilized queen, on entering the gall to estab- 

 lish her colony, gnaws n)inute fragments from the ligneous wall, mixes 

 these wdth some secretion (saliva?) and completely plugs up the round 

 opening through which the Holcaspis escaped and she herself has 

 entered. Later when the first batch of tiny workers appear, they per- 

 forate the center of the plug with a small opening like a pin-prick, and 

 .just large enough for egress and ingress. This opening is too small for 



