PSYCH B. 



SKETCH OF THE HABITS OF NORTH AMERICAN ANTS.*— I. 



BY AUGUSTE FOREL, CHIGNV PRES MORCES, SWITZERLAND. 

 Translated by A. P. Morse. 



Faisons, N. C, July 28, 1899. 

 To the Belgian Entomological Society, 



Brussels. t 

 Dear Colleagues : 



I am approaching the end of a myr- 

 mecological excursion in North America, 

 and find myself here in the hot, low 

 and marshy, almost sub-tropical region 

 of North Carolina (between Goldsboro 

 and Wilmington), under the hospitable 

 roof of my good friend, Dr. Faisons, to 

 whose family the village owes its name. 

 I think that a report of the most inter- 

 esting of the results I have secured will 

 be welcome to you at your next meet- 

 ing. 



I have visited at Toronto, Canada ; 

 Worcester, Mass. (at the home of my 

 friend and fellow-countryman, Prof. Ad. 

 Meyer), Morganton (with my genial 

 colleague. Dr. Murphy, director of the 

 Insane Asylum), Black Mountain, and 

 Faisons, — the three latter localities in 

 North Carolina. 



And first, a remark of general charac- 

 ter relative to what has surprised me in 



* Extract from the " Rivista di .Scienze Biologiche," vol. 

 ii, no 3, Como, 1900. 



t The first part of tltis article, as far as the appendix, is 

 taken from the " Annalea de la Societe entomologique de 

 Belgique," vol. 43, iSgg. 



the highest degree. In Nortli America, 

 with some rare exceptions, the ants do 

 not construct mounds, either of masonry 

 or of other materials. 



In Europe, as you know, ant-hills 

 abound in every meadow, in the woods, 

 in clearings, among the mountains. On 

 coining to a country where the fauna is 

 so similar to that of our own, where so 

 many species only differ from ours in 

 characters often but little distinctive, 

 where the tillage, the fields, the woods, 

 closely resemble those of Europe, I was 

 entirely taken aback when I observed 

 that the varieties of our most common 

 species : Lasius iiigcr, ane/iiis, Jiaviis^ 

 Foimica fi/sca, sa/igiiincn. etc., do not 

 build any masonry mound, but live in 

 hidden, subterranean nests, opening 

 only under stones or on the ground-level 

 by a little crater. But the fact is the 

 same from Canada to North Carolina. 

 I was forced to submit to the evidence. 

 However, the Americans know what an 

 " ant-hill " is. When conversing with 

 them, they refer to it as a great rarity 

 which can be found in such and such a 

 forest twenty or thirty miles away. And 

 on going there you find a colony of 

 Formica cxsci/oiiks, the only species in 

 eastern North America which regularly 



