( XXV ) 



would be conferring an invaluable boon on the community. 

 The ants come into the houses in a thick black stream an 

 inch wide, marching over everything and into everything, 

 and in one case, a very sad instance — the case of a corpse — 

 people had to really sit up with it to prevent the ants 

 molesting the body. 



" The newspaper cutting referred to above has the following 

 short report : ' The Public Works Committee reported that 

 the complaints of the prevalence of ants had been received 

 from 57 properties in Observatory distiict, and that a supply 

 of disinfectants had been sent to Mr. J. H. Hartley, from 

 whom residents could obtain free supplies of disinfectants. 

 Mr. Hartley said something must be done on similar lines 

 as last year. Numbers of people were leaving the district. 

 They must try to do away with this pest, which penetrated 

 even into the houses of the most respectable people. Some 

 people had to spend from 5s. to 7s. Qd. weekly on disin- 

 fectants. Mr. Carey moved that the matter be referred to 

 the Sanitary Committee, adding that the Sauitary Superin- 

 tendent was doing what he could to have the district cleared. 

 Mr. Searle said they spent last year j£300 of the ratepayers' 

 money for this item of disinfectants. They might as well buy 

 up the properties affected.' 



" With regard to the specimens of ants .-ient, some of them, 

 which I have had mounted on card for examination, including 

 the only (^ and $ sent, foim the subject of the exhibit that I 

 have here. The little ones are the ^^ of an Iridomyrmex, 

 subfamily DoUchoderinse. The species is closely allied to, if 

 not identical with, Iridomyrmex anceps, Mayr, found almost 

 throughout the Indo-Malayan region. It had not, so far as I 

 know, been recorded from any part of Africa. The c^ 9 '^ent 

 belong to an entirely different subfamily, the Mi/rmicmse, and 

 I identify them as Aj^hxtioyaster hm'bara, Linn., race cajjensis, 

 Mayr, 



"The inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that there has been 

 faulty (but, considering the little there is known, except to 

 professed entomologists, of the different species of ants, quite 

 excusable) observation in tracing the ants to their nests. 



" With /. anceps, Mayr, in life I am well acquainted, and so 



