Dec, igog.] WhEELER : OBSERVATIONS ON EUROPEAN AnTS. 183 



alpinus), and concentrate his attention on the colonies which at first 

 glance appear to contain only workers and worker brood of the 

 Tetramoriiim. If present, vS". hiiheri and alpinus may be at once recog- 

 nized by the number, size and color of their workers. 5". testaccus, 

 the commonest species of the genus, must be sought more carefully, 

 because its workers are small and much less abundant, though they, 

 too, are lighter in color than the Tctramorium workers. Later in the 

 summer, (during July and August), of course, Tetramoriiim colonies 

 infested with the various Strongylognathns are easily recognized by 

 the great numbers of small males and females of these parasites. 

 Finally, the presence of uniformly developed, gray larvje may be 

 taken to indicate the occurrence of Anergates, the rarest of these 

 parasites, if its presence is not already conspicuously indicated by the 

 numerous imaginal brood of small black females and sordid yellow, 

 nymphoid males. 



With a good pocket lens the Anergates larva may also be recog- 

 nized by its peculiar hairs. It has been briefly described, and a few 

 of its hairs have been figured by Adlerz.* I give a figure (Fig. 2, 

 .^) of a larva from one of the nests described above, and also of a 

 mature worker larva of Tctramorium (Fig. 2, B) for comparison. 

 It will be seen that though both larvae possess pairs of long anchor- 

 tipped dorsal hairs, the head of the Anergates larva is naked, and its 

 short dorsal and ventral hairs (&) are much more densely and com- 

 pactly branching, while the longer hairs (a) are serrate and not 

 branched at their tips like the homologous structures {d) of the 

 Tctramorium larva. The anchor-tipped hairs (c) with sigmoid basal 

 flexure are used in both species for fastening the larvae to the lower 

 surfaces of stones, the roots of plants and the walls of the galleries 

 and chambers of the nest. 



IV. Monomorium minutum Mayr. 

 August 27, between nine and ten A. M., while I was collecting in a 

 field near the Jewish cemetery on the island of Lido, near Venice, 

 I happened on a number of colonies of Monomorium minutum which 

 were nesting in small and indistinct masonry mounds in the grass. 

 These nests were not unlike those of the form which in the eastern 



* Myrmecologiska Studier — II. Svenska Myror och deras Lefnadsfor- 

 hallanden, Bih. Svensk. Vet.-Akad. Handl., XI, 1886, p. 274, pi. VII, figs. 5 

 and 50. 



