1916] Wheeler — A Phosphorescent Ant 173 



1916, pp. 53-66, 7 figs.) in which he discusses the synonymy of 

 Lasius and its subgenera. He accepts Jurine's Lasius as vaHd 

 and substitutes Formicina Shuckard for Lasius Fabricius, present- 

 ing the same arrangement of the subgenera and their types as I 

 have given on page 170. I am still unable to take this view of 

 the matter, because I am not convinced that the generic name of 

 another author (in this case Jurine) is valid when cited in an 

 anonymous paper which itself has no taxonomic status. It would 

 seem that if an anonymous author later acknowledges the author- 

 ship of his paper, the validity of the latter should date only from 

 the time of this acknowledgment. If this rule were followed, 

 Lasius Jurine would date from 1806 and could not replace Lasius 

 Fabricius of 1804. 



A PHOSPHORESCENT ANT. 



By William Morton Wheeler, 

 Bussey Institution, Harvard University. 



Mr. George P. Engelhardt, curator of the Division of Inverte- 

 brates of the Brooklyn Museum, recently sent me the following 

 letter and the ant to which it refers: 



"San Francisco, Calif., Aug. 8, 1916. 

 "My dear Prof. Wheeler: 



"One of my most interesting days on the Pacific Coast this 

 summer was spent with Fordyce Grinnell on a thirty-mile tramp 

 through the Sierra Madre, July 28. Starting from Pasadena we 

 followed the Arroyo Seco to the Divide, came up around Mount 

 Gabriel (6,150 feet) and reached Mount Lowe (5,650 feet) in time 

 for a glorious sunset. Our descent from Mount Lowe was made 

 over the steep and winding ridge trail after dark. There was no 

 moon, but a star-studded sky, while 5,000 feet below Pasadena and 

 Los Angeles had been transformed into a sea of sparkling lights. 



"Down at about the 4,000 feet level we stopped before a bright 

 spark rapidly crossing the trail. Expecting to find one of the 

 Lampyrids, or fireflies, which Grinnell told me were uncommon in 

 the region, we struck a match and to our surprise found an ant. 

 Neither of us had heard of phosphorescent ants before. In a 



