1905.] Wheeler, The Ants of New Jersey. 2>77 



the Old World. It is often confounded with our native Solenopsis 

 molesta Say but can always be distinguished by its 3-jointed, instead 

 of 2 -jointed antennal cliib. 



10. M. minutum Mayr var. minimum (Buckley) Emery. — West- 

 ville (Viereck) ; Riverton (Viereck) ; Lakehurst (Wheeler) . 



This tiny black ant is common in the pine barrens, where it con- 

 structs single or closely clustered craters two to three inches in 

 diameter, often about the roots of the plants in the pure sand. The 

 workers forage in files, visiting plants in search of honey-dew and the 

 secretions of extrafloral nectaries. They also eat dead insects with 

 avidity. The colonies in the pine barrens are quite as populous as 

 those of Southern States, like Florida and Texas, where this ant is 

 very abundant. 



Solenopsis Westwood. 



U.S. molesta Say. — Boonton (Viereck) ; Fort Lee (Wheeler) . 



This tiny species is recorded in Smith's list under the name of 

 S. debilis Mayr. It is remarkable on account of its great diversity 

 of habits, which exhibit a high degree of adaptability. It is often 

 common in open, grassy places where it may live either in inde- 

 pendent formicaries under stones or very rarely in diminutive crater 

 nests, or as a thief-ant in the walls separating the galleries of the 

 formicaries of our larger ants belonging to the genera Formica, Myr- 

 mica, Stenamma {Aphosnogaster), etc. As a free lance it lives on 

 dead insects but when living in cleptobiosis it devours the well-fed 

 larvae and pups of other ants. Under these conditions it escapes 

 unnoticed by its hosts, either on account of its very small size or 

 neutral nest-odor, and takes care to keep its own nests inaccessible 

 to the species on which it preys. In these respects its habits resemble 

 those of the allied European 5. fugax and 5. texana of the Southern 

 States. The blackish males and yellow females, which are very much 

 larger than the yellow workers, make their appearance in late August. 



5. molesta presents, however, another set of habits on which Prof. 

 Forel has thrown considerable doubt, though, in my opinion, without 

 much justification. Since the settling of the country by man this 

 insect has become a formidable house-ant in certain localities. It 

 was found by Mr. Theo. Pergande in houses in Washington, D. C, 

 and Mr. C. E. Brown has repeatedly taken it in the Milwaukee bakeries. 

 I have myself seen enormous colonies in several residences in Rock- 

 ford, Illinois, where it lives in the masonry and wood work of kitch- 

 •ens and annoys the house-wife by its assiduous visits to any foods 



