338 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



words " pessime nosfratum pungit," and it is now known that none 

 of the other European or North American forms of Myrmica (except 

 riibida and mutica, which form a group by themselves) has well-devel- 

 oped stinging powers. As there are no means of telling to which of 

 the two forms Linne referred, and as they are connected by numerous 

 intermediate varieties, known to European myrmecologists as levino- 

 dis-ruginodis, we had best adopt Emery's interpretation. 



A few years ago I described^ a form of levinodis from Woods Hole, 

 Mass., as var. hruesi. On comparing workers of this and of the levi- 

 nodis from Boston with workers from a number of colonies from 

 various parts of Europe (Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, Ger- 

 many, Austria, Switzerland and Russia), I find that the Boston speci- 

 mens are indistinguishable from the typical Old World form. They 

 are yellowish, with brownish head, feebly sculptured head and tho- 

 rax, and with smooth and shining epinotal declivity and postpetiole. 

 These characters will serve to distinguish levinodis from any of our 

 American Myrmicas. The workers of the var. hruesi have the head 

 and thorax somewhat more coarsely rugose, and the postpetiole, though 

 smooth, is subopaque, so that this variety is more like some of the 

 European intermediates between levinodis and ruginodis. The males 

 of hniesi, however, have prominent, suberect hairs on the legs, like the 

 males of the true levinodis. 



I believe there can be no doubt that both the Boston and Woods 

 Hole specimens are the offspring of females that were accidentally 

 imported from Europe. The mothers of the Boston colonies were in 

 all probability introduced into the Arnold Arboretum with European 

 trees or shrubs, and as the few colonies observed by I\rr. C. T. Brues 

 and myself at Woods Hole occupied a very circumscribed locality 

 adjoining Mr. Fay's rose-garden, they probably had a similar history. 



-Forel has described two subspecies of rubra from North America 

 as neolevinodis and champlaini, and if these be regarded as indigenous 

 to the eountr}', it is clear that the Massachusetts colonies of levinodis 

 and hruesi might be similarly interpreted. The Swiss myrmecologist 

 states that M. neolevinodis was introduced into Hamburg "from New 

 York with iris roots." The worker is described as having thicker and 

 shorter antennae than the typical levinodis, with more decidedly bent 

 scapes, a shorter petiole, with nearly straight anterior declivity and 

 somewhat coarser cephalic and thoracic sculpture. As I have never 

 been able to find any form of levinodis in New York state, and as the 



^New Ants from New England. Psyche, XIII, 190C, pp. 38-41, pi. IV. 

 -Formiciclen cles naturhistoi-is<-lien Museums zu Hamburg. :\Iittlieil. aus 

 d. naturhist. Mus. Hamb. XVIII, 1901, pp. 45-82. 



