44 F. SUMICIIRAST. 



the iutroductioD of a foreign bod}- into the openings of their dwelling, 

 they seek to satisfy themselves as to what is going on above. 



The workers minores, (to return to the subject, ) endowed with great 

 activity and better formed for this end, are charged with the razztoK 

 destined to provide food for the larvae, and perhaps they are guided in 

 their course by the individuals of the second category which appear 

 sometimes to rule by their movements the march of the column. 



[ have never seen the tepegnas transporting vegetable debris as do the 

 Oecodoma, and it is to be presumed that the food of their larva? is ex- 

 clusively insectivorous. No doubt, also, they employ to garnish the in- 

 terior of their nest, the fragments of wood from the tree which protects 

 them, for they exhale a strong and nauseating odor like all the Formi- 

 cidj« which live in decaying trunks. 



No. 77 very closely resembles species No. 4, to which it seems to be 

 allied by its form and habits. 



It is distinguished from it by its light color, which is of a reddish- 

 yellow, uniform in all parts; by the polished surface of the head of the 

 workers majores; by the light color of the scape of the antennfe, &c. 

 It is also more rare and more solitary in its habits. I have only found 

 it at Potrero, in the great virgin forests which border the Rio Atoyac. 

 Here also, I met No. 69, which is doubtless a brown variety of No. 4. 

 This last, as well as No. 6, is of an irascible and nomadic character, 

 and hunts also in disorderly masses. Nos. 39 and 40 have, on the con- 

 trary, quiet and timid habits. The march of their columns is made 

 with much regularity. I have often taken the species, No. 39, at 

 evening in my habitation, which they entered in small numbers, but 

 whence they withdrew with haste when the lights were produced. 

 The size of the individuals only, can serve to establish a distinction 

 between the great and little workers, for the head and the mandibles 

 do not present any remarkable difference. 



Hacienda de Potrero, 21st February. 1868. 



Remarks by Edward Norton. 

 The species of Eciton forwarded by Prof. Sumichrast may be tem- 

 porarily classified as follows. (One species. No. 5, is not mentioned 

 by him in the present paper.) 



