WHEELER— ANT LARV^. 295 



embryological and anatomical laboratories and libraries, I found so 

 little apparatus for the work in which I had been trained, that I fell 

 into a peculiar listlessness and was for some weeks unable to con- 

 ceiitrate my attention on any subject that seemed worthy of investi- 

 gation. One day, while I sat on the bank of Barton Creek, near 

 Austin, in the very spot where, as I later learned, MacCook had 

 worked on the famous agricultural ant {P ogonomyrmex molefa- 

 cicns), I happened to see a file of cutting ants {Atta texana), each 

 with its piece of leaf poised in its mandibles. I vividly remember 

 the thrill of delightful fascination with which I watched the red- 

 brown creatures trudging along under their green loads, and it 

 seemed to me that I had at last found a group of organisms that 

 would repay no end of study. At that time there was no active 

 myrmecologist in the country. ]\IacCook had completed his work 

 and Pergande was no longer deeply interested in the ants. Prof. 

 Emery, however, and later Prof. Forel extended helping hands to 

 me and forthwith sent me their numerous and important publica- 

 tions, and several of my students, notably C. T. Brues, A. L. Me- 

 lander, C. G. Hartman and W. A. Long, never wearied of accom- 

 panying me on long excursions into the dry, sunny woods and 

 canyons about Austin. 



For a time I was greatly interested in the habits of three large 

 ants of the primitive subfamily Ponerinas, Odontomachns clarus, 

 Pachycondyla montesunue and Lobopdta elongata, w^hich are com- 

 mon in Central Texas. I was able to show that their peculiar tuber- 

 culate larvae are not fed with regurgitated food, like die larvae of 

 more specialized ants, but with pieces of insects (1900). Concern- 

 ing the feeding of the Odontouiachiis larva I published the follow- 

 ing remark (p. 24) : 



These larvae are placed by the ants on their broad backs, and their heads 

 and necks are folded over onto the concave ventral surface, which serves as 

 a table or trough on which the food is placed by the workers. 



An unpublished note, the significance of which I did not appreciate 

 at the time, refers to Pachycondyla and was recorded while I was 

 studying the behavior of its extraordinary Phorid commensal, Mefo- 

 pina pachycondylce (1901). It runs as follows: 



