26 Psyche [February 
THE NORTH AMERICAN ANTS DESCRIBED BY 
ASA FITCH. 
By Wiuu1amM Morton WHEELER, 
Bussey Institution, Harvard University. 
Asa Fitch, in his well-known report on the insects infesting fruit 
and forest trees, first issued in 1855 in the Transactions of the New 
York State Agricultural Society and in 1856 as a separate volume, 
published descriptions and ethological notes on six species of com- 
mon North American ants which he named the “cherry ant” 
(Myrmica cerasi Fitch), the “troublesome ant” (Myrmica molesta 
Say), the “silky ant”? (Formica subsericea Say), the “wood-eating 
ant” (F. herculeana L.; F. ligniperda Latr.), the ““New York ant” 
(F. noveboracensis Fitch) and the “walnut ant” (F. cary@ Fitch). 
Hymenopterists have bestowed little attention on Fitch’s work and 
have even misinterpreted some of his descriptions. A recent visit 
to the United States National Museum, where I found the types 
of his F. noveboracensis and carye, has led me to study the de- 
scriptions of these and the other species with a view to determining 
the names by which they should now be known. 
1. There is no difficulty in regard to Myrmica cerasi, which 
Emery was undoubtedly right in regarding as a distinct and easily 
recognizable color-variety of what had been previously described 
by Say (1836) as Myrmica lineolata, now known as Crematogaster 
lineolata var. cerast Fitch. 
2. Fitch described at length the habits of Myrmica molesta Say. 
Mayr, Forel, Dalla Torre and others believed Say’s species to be 
merely the common house ant, Monomorium pharaonis L., because 
Say mentioned its occurrence in dwellings, but as Fitch describes 
it as nesting also “‘in our pastures and plowed fields and sometimes 
doing much injury in cornfields, gnawing the blades of corn when 
they are but a few inches high, for the purpose of drinking the 
sweet juice which flows from the wounds,’ it is evident that he 
refers to what Mayr later called Solenopsis debilis. 'The European 
-myrmecologists were misled by their inability to believe that a 
small Solenopsis, closely allied to the European S. fugax Latr., 
could become a household pest. Many years ago I showed that 
this is really the case and supported Emery’s contention that Say’s 
