1906.] Wheeler, The Ants of the Bermudas 349 



2. Odontomachus haematodes insularis Gvierin. — This is evidently 

 the form mentioned by Dahl^ as Odontomachus sp. Among the 

 material collected by Professor Kincaid during July, 1905, are a 

 dealated female and several workers closely resembling in color, 

 sculpture and pilosity the Bahaman variety of insularis which I have 

 called ruginodis. 



Subfamily Myrmicin.«. 



3. Monomorium pharaonis Linn. — I am inclined to believe that 

 this cosmopolitan house-ant is the one mentioned by Professor Verrill 

 as occurring in the Bermudas, and not M. minutum, of which he re- 

 produces Marlatt's figure. The latter species is not a house-ant. 



4. Cardiocondyla emeryi Ford. — A worker and two males col- 

 lected by Professor Kincaid. 



5. Pheidole megacephala Fabr. — This species was found in 

 Bermuda by Dahl, who, like Professor Verrill, mentions it under the 

 name of Ph. pitsilla Heer. Professor Kincaid has sent me several 

 males, winged and dealated females, soldiers and workers taken from 

 at least four different colonies, and Prof. J. H. Comstock has sent me 

 a soldier and worker. Professor Verrill mentions specimens from 

 St. David's Island. It is probably very common throughout the 

 Bermudas and may be responsible for the small number of species 

 in the islands. It is not, however, a native of Madeira, as Professor 

 Verrill states, but a well-known tropicopolitan ant, which, as above 

 stated, overran that island in the first half of the nineteenth century. 

 There can be little doubt that wherever it gains a foothold in tropical 

 or subtropical countries it is able to propagate very rapidly, and 

 to exterminate the indigenous ant-fauna. I have recently seen a 

 good illustration of its habits in the Virgin Islands. During the past 

 March I devoted ten days to a careful study of the aunt-fauna of the 

 little island of Culebra off the eastern coast of Porto Rico without 

 seeing a single specimen of Ph. megacephala. This island is, however, 

 completely overrun with a dark variety of the vicious fire-ant 

 (Solenopsis gcminata). One day, on visiting the island of Culebrita, 

 which is separated by a shallow channel hardly a mile in width from 

 the eastern coast of Culebra, I was astonished to find it completely 

 overrun with Ph. megacephala. This ant was nesting under every stone 

 and log, from the shifting sand of the sea-beach to the walls of the 

 lighthouse on the highest point of the island. The most careful 

 search failed to reveal the presence of any other species of ant, though 



' Die Landfauna von Bermuda, in: Krummel, Reisebeschr. d. Plankton-Expedition. 1902, 

 pp. 105-112, I Taf. 



