160 NOTES ON QEEENSLAND ANTS, 
These ants appeared to work slowly and deliberately 
with a persistent determination to do their duty, and if molested 
searcely quickened their movements if at all, seldom forsook 
their charge, and often adopted a squatting attitude* the very 
opposite of defiance. 
On examination of the material brought by Mr. Blackman 
from his Barwon Park estate, the writer found (1) a number of 
reddish brown very hairy ants, which, from the lateral position 
of the frontal lamin, belonged to the Cryptoceridee—a group of 
the Myrmicide. Their antenne were 9-jointed, including the 
scape, and this feature, associated with the presence of other 
characters, would place them in the genus Meranoplust (Smith), 
as restricted by Mayr.t (2.) A quantity of a chocolate-coloured _ 
earthy material containing a number of grass seeds mostly of 
one kind, though there were amongst them a few smaller rather 
roundly ovate seeds. These seeds were carefully examined for 
evidence of their having been gnawed or otherwise tampered, 
without any being found; and there was little doubt but that 
they would grow on being planted. The soil also contained a 
number of smal] shrunken bodies, which, on soaking, were found 
to be the dried up hairy larves of some insect. (3.) There was 
also a quantity ot the husks of a grass of a single species 
Andropogon intermedia, with a few glumes derived from another 
grass, a species of Pappophorum, also amongst it. 
The genus Meranoplus, to which as above stated these last 
harvesting-ants belong, is not nearly so rich in species as is 
* This is a very common trait in ants. The Pheiole above referred to 
as exhibiting harvesting propensities in the neighbourhood of Brisbane 
is frequently robbed in returning food-laden to its nest by a species of 
Lasius, when it adopts this attitude. The manner also in which various 
Queensland ants allow themselves to be borne away unresistingly by 
their captors is, too, a phase of the same habit. 
+F. Smith, “ Monograph of the genus Cryptocerus,” Trans. Ent. Soc. 
2nd Series, Vol II. pg. 213, London, 1858. 
t Dr. Gustav L. Mayr, “ Formicide,” p. 26 (Reise der Novara, Zoolo- 
gischer Theil. Bd. II. Abth. I., Wien., 1865.) 
