156 NOTES ON QUEENSLAND ANTS, 
seeds were also gnawn into, and the ruptured black perisperm 
—containing more or less food substance-—-in like manner 
rejected. Other seeds, which had swollen only in response to the 
moisture, were carried up for the purpose of being dried 
and re-stored. In the midst of these operations, however, rain 
came on again, and the ants retired, leaving seeds on the surface. 
These immediately germinated, and a small patch of Amaranthus 
grew up, marking the site of what was before a nest of harvest- 
ing ants, quite isolated amongst plants of different character. 
On a second occasion a nest, in which much seed of Hleusine 
indica was known to have been harvested some months since, 
was dug up. Some of the grass seed selected from the nest was 
afterwards sown; also some of the earth from the nest which 
was known to contain both seeds of this plant, and of another 
species of Amaranthus. In both cases the sowings were made 
in situations remote from places in which any of these plants 
were already growing, and as a result, in the course of time 
numerous plants of both Hleusine indica, and of this second 
Amaranthus, sprang up in these new localities, where they con- 
tinue to flourish. 
The genus Pheidole to which—as above remarked—the small 
ant belongs, has representatives throughout the world, and is 
rather a large one; and, though the writer has met with des- 
criptions of, or references to, forty-eight different species, this 
number will probably be found to fall very short of that of the 
species which really exist, especially as many members of this 
genus are, comparatively speaking, diminutive insects or have a 
very restricted range. Only six of the forty-eight species are 
referred to as harvesting ones, viz., two in New Jersey, two in 
south Europe, one in India, and the present example from 
Queensland. The habits of the remaining species are very 
variable, several being found burrowing in rotten wood, and one 
—P. javanica, Mayr—is reported as being restricted to the curious 
plant Myrmecodia (which derives its name from this ant rela- 
