Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology 7 



were rather secretive, or probably, more properly speaking they 

 were averse to the light, and hid by burrowing into the soft 

 sand. A considerable area was dug over, but no evidence of 

 a nest or even any larvae or pupae was found. The sand 

 caved in very rapidly and easily, and that, with the confusion 

 made by pulling up the grass at first, must have destroyed all 

 evidences of a nest if one was present. There were certainly 

 more than a thousand workers at a conservative estimate. Less 

 than a hundred feet distant a smaller colony of a few hun- 

 dred individuals was found in a decaying log. The 

 outer shell of the log was still very hard and firm, but the 

 center had become an almost earthy mass, damp and noticeably 

 warm to the hand. Here again no larvae nor pupae were seen, 

 while the nest was a very haphazard series of tunnels next to 

 the firm wood. There was no external evidence here of the 

 colony. Another colony was later found in the cement walk 

 that ran from the lighthouse to the dock. This nest was a 

 small one, and was started after the writer's arrival on the 

 island. The ants in this colony were noticeably more active 

 during cloudy periods, or just at the beginning of twilight, but 

 they did not work at night. They built no regular mound, but 

 deposited the excavated sand in a small irregular pile near the 

 single entrance to the nest, which lay under the cement. The 

 pile was so frequently destroyed owing to its exposed situa- 

 tion, either by wind or rain or an inadvertant footstep, that it is 

 quite possible that the ants never had a chance to construct 

 the usual form of nest. 



The species was, on the whole, rare on the island. The few 

 records obtained show that it occurs in exposed places, i. e., 

 places where there is little or no shade from trees and shrubs, 

 such as on the bare beaches and the sparsely covered dunes, 

 that it frequently has no mound at the nest entrance, and that 



