Article XX.— THE ANTS OF THE BERMUDAS. 

 By William Morton Wheeler. 



Professor Trevor Kincaid has recently sent me a small collection 

 of ants, the study of which affords an opportunity of bringing together 

 the little that is known concerning the ant-fauna of the Bermuda 

 Islands. In this undertaking I have been materially aided by 

 Professor A. E. Verrill's comprehensive work/ in which he has 

 collected the scattered references to the Formicidai. These references, 

 together with the specimens taken by Professor Kincaid, indicate 

 that the ant-fauna of the Bermudas is extremely meager. This is 

 not surprising when we stop to consider the geological history of these 

 isolated islands and the fact that their present terrestrial fauna and 

 flora is very largely, if not exclusively, made up of species that have 

 been introduced since glacial times by commerce or by purely acci- 

 dental agencies. The ants certainly belong to widely distributed 

 species, several of which have made their way as well-known tramps 

 or stow-aways to many other islands besides the Bermudas. Even 

 the single new species {Prenolepis kincaidi) described in the present 

 paper is probably of West Indian origin. 



There seem to have been times in the history of the Bermudas, 

 however, when the ants made up in number of individuals for what 

 they lacked in variety of species. This is shown by the extracts 

 quoted by Professor Verrill from the works of Governor Butler ^ and 

 Hurdis.^ 



In the following quaint passage Governor Butler mentions certain 

 ants which were making the lives of the inhabitants uncomfortable 

 as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century: "The moscitoes 

 and flies also are somewhat over busie, with a certain Indian bugge 

 called, by a Spanish appellation a caca-roche, the which, creepeinge 

 into chestes and boxes, eate and defile with their dung (and thence 

 their Spanish name) all they meet with; as doe likewise the little aunt, 

 which are in summer time in infinite numbers; worms in the earth 

 and mould also, ther are but too many (but of them we shall saye 



' The Bermuda Islands, an Account of their Scenery, Climate, Productions, Physiography, 

 Natural History, and Geology, with Sketches of their Discovery and Early History, and the 

 Changes in thetr Flora and Fauna due to Man, with 38 Plates and over 250 Cuts in the Text 

 Reprinted from the Trans. Connecticut Acad. Sci., Vol. XI, with some changes. New Haven, 

 Conn. igo2. 



2 Gov. Nathaniel Butler. Historye of the Bermudaes, 1609-22. 



■5 John L. Hurdis. Rough Notes and Memoranda relating to the Natural History of the Bermudas. 

 Edited by H. J. Hurdis from MS. notes mostly made from 1847-1855. London, 1897. 



347 





