178 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



avail themselves of any suitable crevices in the masonry of 

 buildings, under woodwork and when once lodged there are very 

 difficult to get rid of. Their mushroom garden is constructed in 

 the same way as A. cephalotes, but presents a more compact 

 appearance. The " kohlrabbi " clumps are identical with those 

 of cephalotes, and are found in the gardens in the same way. 

 This species attack many garden plants, but seem to be very fond 

 of roses, which suffer very much from their forays. The workers 

 vary from 2| to 8 mm. The smaller ones acting as nurses 

 in the nest and not cutting leaves. The large ones seem capable 

 of laying eggs, as an artificial nest I have containing no cpieen 

 or female ant, contains newly hatched larva? although they were 

 separated from the mother nest, six months ago. This is the 

 species referred to by Mr. Tanner, who has made the same 

 observation on the egg laying capacity of these large workers. 

 Dr. Fritz Miiller ascertained, man)- years ago, that the workers of 

 species belonging to this genus, are capable of producing at least 

 one fertile egg. Another curious thing about this ant is that on 

 two occasions at different places I have seen fertilized females 

 working just as hard and engaged in the same occupation as the 

 neuters, viz : cutting leaves and carrying them to the nest. 

 They all issued from the same nest and therefore could not 

 have been mothers of new colonies. Any one who studies ants 

 knows that queens will not work if they can help it and this 

 proceeding is interesting especially as there were workers in the 

 nests who could do the work. I also noticed that several 

 females lost their wings in nests without an}' marital flight, 

 although a few weeks later the winged ones swarmed out in the 

 usual way on a damp evening. The larva? of these ants are 

 covered by a white shining skin, studded over with short 

 stiff hairs which, at their ends, are shaped like an anchor. When 

 a nest is disturbed small workers can be seen carrying larva? much 

 larger than themselves. And as it is quite impossible for these 

 to open their mandibles wide enough to grasp the large larvse 

 firmly, they probably take hold of these hairs and it would seem 

 that they are there for this purpose. Moller also records these 

 hairs on the larva? of Acromyrmex discigera from Brazil. 



4. Subgenus : Trachymyrmex, Forel. 



T. Urichii, Forel, n. sp. 



The nest of this species is excavated in clayey soils and 

 never anywhere else. It consists of one chamber at about the 

 depth of a foot and is never directly under the entrance hole, 

 but always on one side at right angles and about 9 inches away 

 from it. It has a habit of carrying the particles of earth which 

 result from it's mining operations a little way from the entrance 



