September-October iSSS.] PSl'CHE. 113 



building material and as it reached tlie two-thirds devoured by them. There 



wall it tiu"ned and exuded a drop of was a nest on the roof, suppoi ted by 



mucilaginous fluid from the abdomen the rafters, around which all the shingles 



then whiiled instantly about and de- had disappeared, while others were 



posited its fibers upon it as it lay on the mucli eaten and all the posts were thickly 



wall, mixing and moulding the mass perforated with their galleries. Such 



with its jaws. This ptdp had about was the speed with which the ants 



the consistency of papier machc and worked, througli industry and mnnbers, 



was readily manipulated forming a wall that the eroded surfaces appeared quite 



of about the thickness of heav3' writing fresh, being of nearly the color of newly 



paper. This hardens rapidly, but cut w'ood. The owner of this house 



remains pliable for some time, thus the informed me tliat lie liad destroyed 



walls on the extreme outer edge of the every trace of the nest many times only 



newly erected portion could be bent to see it rebuilt, as fast as the ants 



without breaking, whereas the older could construct it. 

 portions are quite brittle. [Note. Unfortunately Mr. Maynard 



xA.s the orifice on which the ants were did not pieserve specim.ens of this 



employed grew smaller, fewer and termite for indentification and Dr. 



fewer could find room, yet tiieie was Hagen in his Monographieder Termiten 



no crowding, each keeping his ac- does not mention any species from the 



customed distance from liis fellows, so Bahamas. In 1SS3 Mr. B. H. Van 



one after another they disappeared, as V'^leck collected large numbers of Eii- 



I watched, until but one was left to tei-mcs rifpcrti at Nassau, and Mr. 



complete the minute hole remaining. Maynard's observations undoubtedly 



These ants are very destructive to refer to this species, which is common 



btuldings, especially to the small houses upon many of the West Indian islands 



of the negros, and when they have once and in South America. See, Proc. 



obtained a foothold the house is doomed. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., December 1877 



I knew of a small house in the neigh- v. 19, p. 367-374 for Notes on the tree 



borhood of Nassau that had not been nests of Termites in Jamaica by H. G. 



occupied for a 3 ear or two that was Hubbard. — S: H.] 



WALCKENAER'S NAMES OF AMERICAN SPIDERS. 



BY JAMES HENRY EMERTON, BOSTON, MASS. 



Mr. Henr)- C. McCook has called using them in place of latter names 



attention in the Proceedings of the Phil- given b\ Hentz and others, 



adelphia Acad, of Nat. Sciences to the There is no doubt that as far as these 



names of American spiders published names can be identified with certainty 



by Walckenaer, and the necessity of and shown to be the oldest, they ought 



