262 Journal Xew York Entomological Society. f^'o'- -^i^- 



Lasius (Acanthomyops) claviger in Tahiti. — Prof. C. H. Edmond- 

 son of Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas, has recently sent me, among 

 some ants which he collected in Tahiti, a vial containing eight 

 workers and four winged females of Lasius (Acanthomyops) claznger, 

 a species hitherto known to occur only in the northern portion of the 

 United States. Having doubts of the authenticity of the label on the 

 specimens, I wrote Prof. Edmondson and received the following reply : 

 ■' In regard to the specimens of the common ant, Lasius claviger, I 

 assure you that they were also taken in Tahiti during August, 1908. 

 I have a mental picture of the exact spot in Tahiti where I obtained 

 them : in a broad street in the village of Papeete, under stones. I 

 could not possibly have substituted Kansas ants, for I have never col' 

 lected any ants in this state or in any other part of the United States, 

 and there are no ants in my insect collection. Moreover, the Tahi- 

 tian material was labelled in the original vial, soon after collecting." 

 This statement leaves no doubt that L. claviger has been recently 

 imported into the Society Islands and is sufficiently well established to 

 produce queens. The only other known case of a North American ant 

 being introduced into the islands of the Pacific is Pogonomyrmcx 

 occidentalis Cresson. This well-known harvester of the high plains 

 of Yyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and the adjoining states, was 

 recorded several years ago by Forel as occurring in Hawaii. — W. M. 

 Wheeler. 



A Desert Cockroach. — The cockroaches, so far as their habits are 

 concerned, arc commonly supposed to constitute a rather monotonous 

 group. This is probably due to the small number and uninteresting 

 behavior of the species that come under the observation of entomolo- 

 gists dwelling in temperate regions. A glance at the more recent 

 literature, however, shows that the Blattoidea are really one of the 

 most extraordinary groups of insects. Their immense antiquity, the 

 diversity of their fossil forms, the probability, recently emphasized by 

 Handlirsch, that the group produced the ancestors of the modern Ter- 

 mites and Hymcnoptera. the gregariousness of certain species, fore- 

 shadowing the social habits of these same Termites and of many 

 Hymcnoptera, the wide dispersal of certain household species, the 

 development of ovoviviparity in several tropical forms and of myrme- 

 cophilous and sphegophilous habits in others — all these pecularities 



