330 Annals Entomological Society of America [Vol. VIII, 
accurate, at least for the var. virescens. This ant rises on its 
middle and hind legs, so that they are nearly straight, the fore 
pair are thrust out into the air and often waved about as if to 
grasp the intruder and the mandibles are opened as widely as 
possible. A slight shock to the nest when the workers are thus 
congregated will precipitate the whole mass of them over one’s 
clothes and head. Then one may notice a peculiar method of 
behavior which is evidently merely a modification of the posture 
assumed by the ants when they are holding the leaves together 
during the construction of the nest. After digging the claws. 
of their backwardly directed legs into one’s skin, they seize the 
skin in front of them with their mandibles and begin to pull 
slowly and steadily. This produces a peculiar sensation as if 
the skin were tightly bound with cords. It is especially marked 
when a row of ants seizes the skin of one’s neck with the 
mandibles and fastens the claws into the edge of one’s collar. 
I was unable to study the founding of the colonies of 
virescens as the ants had not yet produced their annual genera- 
tion of sexual individuals at the time of my visit to Queensland, 
but Mr. F. P. Dodd informs me that the huge, recently fecun- 
dated queen, after cutting off her wings, takes up her abode in a 
curled leaf. In the course of a few days she lays,a batch of 
eggs and when they hatch she employs the young larve in 
spinning enough silk to bind the edges of the leaf together. A 
figure (Fig. 135) and a few brief notes published by Maxwell- 
Lefroy and Howlett in their work on Indian insect-life (1909) 
suggest that the queen of the typical smaragdina founds her 
colony in the same manner. 
The large genus Polyrhachis has been recently divided into 
several subgenera. I have found that the numerous Australian 
species of three of these, Campomyrma, Hagiomyrma and 
Chariomyrma, all nest in the ground under stones or pieces of 
wood, except Hagiomyrma semiaurata, which nests in great logs. 
The small, shining black species, with peculiarly arched thorax, 
now referred to the subgenus Cyrtomyrma, however, inhabit 
silken nests attached to the leaves of trees. This is true, at 
least, of the Australian C. levior Roger and its var. yorkana 
Forel, which are merely forms of the Indomalayan rastellata 
Latreille. I found the nests of /evior to be of small size and 
usually built on thick, broadly lanceolate leaves such as those 
