72 Mr. F. Smith on some new Genera and Sjiecies 



Worker minor. Length 1-3 lines. Of the same colour and pimctation 

 as the worker major ; small specimens are usually paler ; all the indi- 

 viduals have the head much narrower and longer than in the larger 

 form, and it is also widest in front. The thorax at the sides in fi-ont 

 is obscurely fiiscous; this character is rarely obsei-vable in the large 

 examples. The antennae in this species are rather longer than in 

 E, vastator. 

 Hah. Ega. 



The habits of this species are very singular ; it does not, like many 

 other species, march in long columns, crossing open spaces, and climb- 

 ing np trees and bushes, but constructs covered ways built of minute 

 grains of earth, beneath the protection of which the Knes of foragers 

 march, when engaged in plundering other ants' nests ; if a gallery 

 of this kind is broken into, the larger workers or soldiers rear their 

 heads and gesticulate in a threatening manner. On examining this 

 species under a powerful microscope, I could detect only an ii'regular 

 pit in the usual situation of the minute eyes of this genus. 



Genus Stkumigents, n. g. 



Head cordate ; mandibles porrect, tridentate ; eyes roimd, placed ante- 

 riorly at the sides of the head, at the extremity of a broad, deep excava- 

 tion ; the antennae inserted in the excavation, into which they are 

 received in repose ; the flagellum 5-joiuted; the scape three-fourths of 

 the length of the flagellum ; the ocelli placed in a triangle on the 

 vertex, obsolete in the workers. Thorax ovate, oblong, and attenuated 

 posteriorly in the workers ; the anterior tibiae only fiu'nished with a 

 single spine at their apex. Abdomen with two nodes, the first attached 

 to the thorax by a short petiole ; both are subovate, the second twice the 

 width of the first ; the abdomen subovate, and pointed at the apex. 



The genus Strumigenys is doubtless closely allied to the Daceton of 

 Perty ; these genera, with that of Orectognathus, form a small group 

 of ants, which appear to me to lead into the family of the Crypto- 

 ceridce ; they agree with the latter insects in having the antennae 

 placed at the sides of the head in a groove, into which they fall 

 when in repose ; they are also, like some species of Cryptocendxn, 

 more or less ornamented with scales. 



1, Strumigenys mandibidaris. (Plate IV. fig. 6$, 7$.) 



S. rufo-ferruginea ; capite cordato ; abdomine laevissimo, nigro. 



Female. Length 2^ lines. Rufo-ferruginous ; the head black and 

 opake, with the anterior and posterior parts ferruginous ; the mandibles 

 produced, with their apex curved inwards, fomiing an acute, stout tooth; 

 there are also two short, stout, blunt ones near their apex on the inner 



