1919] Wheeler — A New Paper-Making Crematog aster 107 



A NEW PAPER-MAKING CREMATOGASTER FROM 

 THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES.^ 



By William Morton Wheeler, 



More than thirty years ago the late Prof. George F. Atkinson 

 described and figured a large, elongate elliptical paper nest which 

 he took to be the work of our common acrobat ant, Crematogaster 

 lineolata Say.^ The structure, "about eighteen inches long by 

 twelve inches in circumference at greatest diameter " was discovered 

 by H. A. Brown in the marshes bordering Broad Creek, Hyde 

 County, N. C, and was "built several feet from the ground on a 

 bush." The material was "of a light gray color, much like that 

 of the nest of the white-faced hornet," but was darker internally, 

 almost black in some places. Atkinson believed that the Crema- 

 togaster, instead of building in its usual manner under stones or 

 logs, where it not infrec^uently covers the walls of its chambers 

 with a variable amount of dark-colored carton, had adopted the 

 arboreal habit as a "singular adaptation" to living in a swamp. 

 As I saw no reason to question the correctness of his identification 

 of the ant, I have on two or three occasions expressed the same 

 opinion.' 



About a year ago Dr. E. F. Bigelow sent me a photograph and 

 fragments of a large paper nest found by Mr. J. Willis Youngs at 

 Fort Myers, Fla., together with some of the ants that had con- 

 structed it. Dr. Bigelow subsequently published the photograph 

 with a few notes.* The nest as shown in the photograph is much 

 damaged but must have been originally more than a foot in length. 

 A study of the ants shows that they represent an undescribed 

 species, closely related to C. iineolata but easily recognizable as 

 distinct. I feel reasonably certain from an examination of the 

 carton and a comparison of Atkinson's and Bigelow's figures that 

 both nests were built by the same species of ant. 



Very recently Dr. W. M. Mann sent me specimens of the same 



1 Contribution from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Harvard 

 University. No. 157. 



2 Singular Adaptation in Nest-making by an Ant, Cremastogaster lineolata Say. Amer. 

 Natural. 21, 1887, pp. 770-771, PI. 26. 



3 The Habits of the Tent-building Ant {Crematogaster lineolata Say). Bull. American Mus. 

 Nat. Hist. 22, 1906, p. 15; Vestigial Instincts in Insects and other Animals. Amer. Journ. 

 Psychol. 19, 1908, p. 4. 



* A Very Interesting Study of Ants. Guide to Nature 11, March 1919, p. 270. 



