390 JOURNAL OP ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



it has got a good hold. We have the case of the cotton boll weevil 

 in point. When this insect first crossed the border at Brownsville, 

 Texas, it was looked on as something insignificant except by the few, 

 and I may state without being accused of boasting, that among that 

 small minority were numbered the officials of our State Experiment 

 Station. Just how much the spread of the boll- weevil has cost our 

 cotton planters during the few years it has been with us is well 

 known. That Iridomyrmex humilis — that "stranger within our 

 gates" — has been introduced and has spread to an extraordinary ex- 

 tent — to such an extent as to threaten at least two of our gTeat 

 staples, on the one hand through its care of scale insects and plant 

 lice ; on the other through its antagonism to certain species of bene- 

 ficial insects, notably the ant Solenopsis geminata — there is now every 

 evidence, and it is a question whether any effective measures can be 

 started even at this early date and the insect's comparatively small 

 range in the South. It is but another proof of the spreading of the 

 fire through failure to quench it at the start, and I venture to say that 

 hereafter the people of this section, at least, will give ear to the warn- 

 ings of our economic entomologists. 



From about 1891 to 1900 I was very much interested in the group 

 of aculeate Hymetioptera, of which the ants form a no insignificant 

 branch, and while my collecting was mainly confined to the Fossorial 

 or "Digger" wasps, the hunt naturally led me more or less into con- 

 tact with the Formicidae. During the early years of this period I 

 collected rather assiduously along the levee front at Audubon Park 

 and in the park itself, a field where the insect would have been com- 

 paratively conspicuous if it had been introduced l)y the exhibits at 

 the Exposition of 1884-1885 ; at least, this can be assumed from our 

 present knowledge as to its rapid increase. At that time our form of 

 the large Carpenter Aiit (Camponotus hercideaniis, sub species penn- 

 sylvanicus) was quite a common insect, together with a very minute 

 black ant which seems to live symbiotically ; at least, that is the conclu- 

 sion I have come to, for I have on man}^ occasions found the two 

 species together. What I took to be the American form, or one of the 

 many subspecies of Formica sa)i guinea Fabr. was also present in 

 numbers and the small yellow, or "pavement" ant (Manomorium 

 pharaonis Linn), also the red ant Solenopsis gemiiiata Fabr. — the one 

 with fire at both ends— were very abundant, while another compara- 

 tively large fuscous form with a darker patch on the thorax was to be 

 found abundant on the trees fringing the river. There were others, 

 notably Lasius flavus De Geer, but it is needless to go into their names 

 even if I could place them definitely. Today all of these species are 



