r.'22.] 185 



him to compare it with Roger's type in the Andre collection. j\I. Berland 

 sent him a sketch of the head of the type and told him that: (1) The 

 scape reaches the posterior border of the head ; (2) the frontal furrow is 

 hroad to nearly the middle of the head, and then continues in a fine line 

 which reaches the posterior border. Being fresher, his example was 

 somewhat lighter in colour than the type, but otherwise agreed with it 

 in all particulars. Mons. Santschi therefore considered it was necessary 

 to correct the figures and descriptions of P.piincfafissima, which give it 

 too short a scape and do not mention the frontal furrow. This last 

 character easily separates it from both P. coarctata Latr. andP. eJouardi 

 Forel. In his figure he shows the thorax and petiole in profile ; the 

 thorax and abdomen from above ; the head from above ; and the labial 

 and maxillary palpi. Mons. C. Emery, in his ants of the Palaearctic 

 region (1919), figures the head of the ^ with the scape not reaching the 

 posterior border of the head. In his table he distinguishes coarctata, 

 japonica, eclouardi, ^^(S. punctatissima from ahcillei and raf/usai,h\ the 

 mesonotum being separated from the pleura by a suture (Santschi does 

 not show this suture in his profile figui'e of punctatissima, though he 

 does for coarctata v. atlaiitis) ; and punctatissi»ia from edoiiardi by 

 the scape not reaching the posterior border of the head. 



In "British Ants" (1915) I did not use these characters, as there 

 are many which serve to separate punctatissima from coarctata, our 

 only other British species. Recently, however, when my friend 

 Mr. Ilarwood sent me ^ ^ and winged 5 5 of a Ponera from Wester- 

 ham (Donisthorpe, 1922), which I at once saw wei'e not coarctata, I 

 used Emery's table to make sure they were not some species other than 

 punctatissima, and I found that the mesonotum was separated from the 

 pleura by a faint but perceptible suture, and the scape did not I'each the 

 posterior border of the head ! 



After I had seen Dr. Santschi's paper, I proceeded to overhaul all 

 the specimens of P. punctatissima I could get hold of in Britain. 

 These were from Edinburgh; Oxford; Old Ford, London; Bromley; 

 Westerham ; Chatham ; Queenborough ; Southsea ; Gibraltar ; and St. 

 Helena. 



The specimens from Oxford included the type of P. tarda Charsley 

 (for the loan of which I have to thank my friend Prof. E. B. Poulton), 

 about which species Er. Andre wrote (1881): — " M. Charsle}^ d'Oxford 

 a decrit, sous le nom P. tarda, une espece trouvee en Angleterre et qui 

 n'est autre que la P. punctatissima ainsi c|ue j'ai pu m'en assurer par 



