1917] Wheeler—The North American Ants Described by Fitch SAT 
species should be known as Solenopsis molesta (=debilis Mayr). 
Fitch’s observations, which were unknown to me at that time, are 
additional confirmation of our view. 
3. The silky ant, Formica subsericea Say, is, of course, the com- 
mon form now regarded as merely a more pubescent variety of 
F. fusca L. 
4. Fitch’s description of F. herculeana and ligniperda, which he 
evidently believed to be synonymous, shows that he referred to 
what we now call Camponotus herculeanus L. subsp. pennsylvanicus 
DeGeer. He was thoroughly familiar with this insect and its 
habits. 
5. Fitch’s description of F. noveboracensis is very clear and 
shows that he had before him specimens of what Forel later called 
Camponotus ligniperdus var. pictus. Some years ago Pergande 
proved this from examination of Fitch’s types. As ligniperda is 
merely a subspecies of herculeanus, the ant is now called C. her- 
culeanus L. subsp. ligniperda Latr. var. noveboracensis Fitch. It 
should be noted that the last name is spelled “‘novawboracensis” 
by Fitch. It is, perhaps, permissible to amend so obvious an 
orthographic error. 
6. On examining the types of Fitch’s Ff. caryw (several workers 
and females) in the National Museum I was surprised to find that 
they are identical with the form described by Emery in 1893 as 
Camponotus marginatus Latr. var. nearcticus. Emery  subse- 
quently discovered that Latreille’s marginatus was a variety of 
C. maculatus Fabr. subsp. ethiops Fabr. and that what Roger and 
later myrmecologists had been calling marginatus was really the 
form described by Nylander in 1856 as fallax. In my later papers 
I therefore referred nearcticus and a whole series of allied sub- 
species and varieties to Nylander’s species. It is now evident 
that nearcticus becomes a synonym of carye and that the closely 
related fallax of Europe, described a year later, becomes C. carye 
var. fallax Nyl. Hence the synonymy of the typical cary@ would 
stand as follows: 
Camponotus (Camponotus) caryw Fitch. 
Formica carye Fitch, Trans. N. Y. State Agric. Soc. 14 (1854), 
1855, pp. 855-859, 8, 9, o’; First and Second Report on the 
Nox. Benef. and Other Ins. State N. Y., 1856, pp. 151-155; 
Third Report, 1859, p. 123. 
