184 



HYMENOPTEEA. 



Fi-. 112. 



have the thorax and node of the peduncle armed with spines 

 or hooks. They construct small semicircular nests, of a kind 

 of net-work, on the leaves of trees and 

 shrubs. Their communities are small, sel- 

 dom exceeding twenty individuals. Mr. 

 Norton describes P. arboricola (Fig. 112, 

 worker major) from Mexico. An allied 

 genus is Ectatomma (Fig. 113, worker major 

 of E. ferruginea Norton, from Mexico). 



Mr. F. Smith has described a new genus, 

 (EcojjhyUa, which is allied to Formica. 

 They are green ants, found building in trees 

 in the tropics of the old world. The nest of (E. smaragduta 

 Smith is "formed by drawing together a number of green 

 leaves, which they unite with a fine web. Some nests are a 

 foot in diameter. They swarm, says Mr. AVallace, in hilly for- 

 ests in New Guinea. Their sting is not very severe. This 

 genus forms a link between Formica and Myrmica ; it 



agrees with the former in hav- 

 ing a single node to the pe- 

 duncle, and with the latter in 

 haviug the ocelli obsolete in 

 the workers, and in beiug fur- 

 nished with a sting." 



The curious Iloney-ant of 

 Texas and Mexico, Myrmeco- 

 cystus Mexicanus Westwood, 

 has two kinds of "workers of 

 Yery distinct forms, one of the 

 usual shape," according to 

 Smith, " and performing the 

 ^'S- 113. active duties of the formica- 



rium ; the other and larger worker is inactive and does not quit 

 the nest, its sole purpose, apparently, being to elaborate a kind 

 of honey, which they are said to discharge into prepared recep- 

 tacles, which constitutes the food of the entire population of 

 the community. In the honey-secreting workers the abdomen 

 is distended into a large globose bladder-like form. From 

 this honey an agi-eeable drink is made b}' the JNIexicans." 



