404 AI^NUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



thoas of southern Texas. In southern Florida great damage is some- 

 times done to the orange groves by the caterpillar. Another beauti- 

 ful swallowtail is Papilio palmnedes Drury (pi. 50, fig. 4), which in 

 its early stages feeds on the leaves of various bay trees ; not only on 

 those of the swamp bay {Tamala puhescens) , belonging to the Laurel 

 family, but also on the foliage of the sweet bay {Magnolia glauca), 

 which belongs to a very distinct family, but is aromatically fragrant 

 like the laurels, or true bays. 



Among the more sober-colored butterflies of the park are two so- 

 called skippers, Pamphila ocola (Prenes ocola, Edwards), the life 

 history of which has not been studied, and the swallow-tailed Euda- 

 mus proteus L. (pi. 50, fig. 1), the caterpillar of which feeds upon 

 leguminosse and makes a rude nest for itself by drawing the edges 

 of leaves together with strands of silk after having cut slits in them. 

 By the farmers it is appropriately called the bean leaf roller, and 

 is regarded as a pest. 



ANTS, WASPS, AND BEES. 



The hymenoptera of Paradise Key were kindly identified for the 

 writer by Mr. J. C. Crawford and Mr. S. A. Rohwer, of the United 

 States National Museum, and Mr. H. L. Viereck, of the United States 

 Biological Survey. Several of the most remarkable species are 

 sliown on plate 51. 



ANTS. 



The carpenter ant, CaTuponotus (Myrmothrix) ahdonvinalis^ rep- 

 resented in Paradise Key by the subspecies -fioridanus (pi. 51, fig. 2), 

 must have come into Florida from the West Indies.^ Like its nearest 

 relatives, this ant makes tunnels or galleries in dead wood, and, like 

 other true Formicida3, its colonies consist of several distinct forms or 

 castes; in addition to males, females, and workers, a large-headed 

 caste usually called soldiers. As in the termites, females and males 

 are winged, while the workers and soldiers are wingless. Comstock, 

 who has studied the habits of the closely allied carpenter ant ( Campo- 

 notus pennsylvanicus) of the eastern United States, describes the 

 nuptial flight of the males and females. Very soon after the honey- 

 moon the male dies; and the pregnant female, tearing off her own 

 wings, for which she has no further use, proceeds to form a new 

 colony very much after the manner of the bumblebees and social 

 wasps. On many occasions Comstock found a female carpenter ant 

 in a small cleared space beneath the bark of a dead tree or log, either 

 alone or accompanied by eggs, larvae, or small workers. Usually the 

 females are styled "queens," but this name is hardly applicable to 



^Wheeler, W. M., Aots, Tbeir Structure, Development, and Behavior, p. 151. 



