102 



FOBMICID,^, 



workers is far more ferocious and effective tlian that of the soldiers. 

 As for the giants, they are useless as lighters, and beyond occasion- 

 ally acting as " state elephants," as Mr. Aitken has somewhere 

 humorously suggested, they appear, so far as I could see, to be of 

 no use to the community. Mr. Kothney, however, records having 

 seen them on one of their covered ways " very busy 7iot carrying 

 or building-up, but slowly making their way along the line, and 

 here and there stopping and rearing themselves up against the 

 Avails, pressing together and smoothing out in a way that their 

 great size gave them special facility for doing ;" so after all they 

 may be the trowels and rammers of the Ants' Public Works 

 Department. 



Kci/ to the Specien. 



1/1/. 

 a. Lenpfth 4-.5-13 mm. 



a'. Front of the head bearing a single ocellus in 



the middle P. diversus, p. 162. 



b' . Front withont any ocellus 

 Lenirth under 4-5 mm 



P. affinis, p. 104. 

 P. tiam(s, p. lOo. 



5 ^ 



a. Colour dark chestnut-brown ; length over 2-5 mm. P. diversus, p. 102. 



b. Colour light brownish yellow ; length under 



2"5 mm. 

 a'. Length 2-2-5 mm. Sides of the head smooth. P. affinis, p. 104. 

 b'. Length barely 2 mm. Sides of the head 



finely rugose -P. nanus *, p. 105. 



187. Phidologiton diversus, Jerdon (Ocodoma), Madr. Jour. L. S. 

 xvii (1851), p. 109, ^. 

 Pheidole ocellifera & taprobanse, Smith, Cat. vi (1858), pp. 174, 5?, 

 & 175, 2 . 



11 max. Dark chestnut-brown; mandibles nearly black ; antennae 

 and legs more or less reddish brown ; head anteriorly and thorax 



on the sides longitudinally 

 striate, the posterior lobes 

 of the head in front, the 

 pronotum anteriorly and 

 the basal portion of the 

 metanotum transversely 

 striate ; the 1st node of the 

 pedicel irregularly rugose, 

 the rest of the insect smooth, 

 shining and polished. Head 

 rectangidar, as broad in 

 front as posteriorly, the sides straight, the posterior border widely 

 emarginate, a deeply impressed medial narrow groove down the 

 front, with a single large ocellus at the beginning of its lower third ; 

 mandibles large, nearly black, smooth, with a few shallow punctures, 



Fig. di). — Phidologiton diversus. If.. 



* P. lamellifrons, ¥ore\, p. IGfi, is not included in the key, only the $ being 

 known. 



