204 Psyche [December 



esting papers on the habits of jpicea as observed in the Sphagnum 

 bogs near Copenhagen.^ He describes in detail its small mound 

 nests in the clumps of wet Sphagnum and shows how it hibernates 

 in these nests, which are frozen solid during the winter months. 

 Bonner's observations induced Forel to search for F. picea in some 

 peat-bogs near Yvorne, Switzerland, a country from which the 

 ant had not been recorded. He succeeded in finding it, and from 

 a study of his specimens concluded that it is to be regarded as a 

 distinct species.^ 



The wide distribution of picea in boreal Eurasia led me to hope 

 that I might find it or a closely related form in the peat-bogs of 

 New England. I therefore gladly accepted the invitation of Prof. 

 R. T. Fisher, director of the Harvard Forest, to explore with him 

 a large peat-bog at Petersham, Mass. This bog is at an altitude 

 of over 700 feet! Its flora has a pronounced boreal f acies as shown 

 by the following lists of plants which were abundant in such 

 portions of it as we could conveniently enter: Picea mariana and 

 canadensis, Larix laricina, Chamceoda'phne calyculata, Kalmia 

 angustifolia and 'polifolia, Ledum granlandicum, Rhododendron 

 canadense and Oxycoccos oxycoccos. I did not find picea in this bog 

 but instead a variety of fiisca L., evidently distinct, of which I 

 had received specimens from Sphagnum bogs in other localities. 

 I had erroneously included this form in F.fusca var. gelida Wheeler 

 in my recent "Revision of the Genus Formica (Linne) Mayr."' 

 Only one small colony of the ant was found and this was nesting 

 under a log in damp, peaty soil. On again examining my series 

 of gelida, I find that all the specimens cited from Eastern North 

 America, /'. e., from Labrador, Quebec, Ne^^foundland, Ontario 

 and Nova Scotia, and a few specimens mostly taken in Sphagnum 

 bogs in New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan and New York and 

 partly referred to F. f^isca var snha-nescens Emery, belong to this 

 distinct unpublished variety which differs from the true var. 

 gelida in the pubescence and sculpture of the gaster and the color 

 and sculpture of the thorax. I have seen only worker and female 

 specimens answering to the following description: 



• Formica fusca picea eine Moorameise. Biol. Centralbl. 34, 1915, pp. 59-76, 6 figs, and Die 

 Ueberwinterung von Formica picea und andere biologische Beobachtungen. Ihid. 35, 191 5, 

 pp. 65-77, 1 pi. 



2 Deux Nouveautfis Mjrm^cologiques, September 1, 1914, 1 p. (author's publication). 



3 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 53, 1913, pp. 379-565, 10 maps. 



