viii BRITISH ANTS. 



large numbers of notes and papers dealing with ants. It would 

 be astonishing if this were not so, considering the deep and wide 

 interest attached to these insects morphologically, as well as 

 physiologically, bionomically and psychologically. These notes 

 and papers I have endeavoured as far as possible to collect and 

 make available for the reader. This task has indeed been somewhat 

 of a difficulty, and it would have been easier for me to write and 

 possibly more interesting for the student to read, if a continuous 

 account had been given of the habits, etc., of our species as known 

 to me, instead of a narrative continually interrupted by references 

 and by quotations from the records of other writers. 



I was at first tempted to adopt the former method, but on 

 reflection it seemed obviously necessary in a scientific work to pay 

 due attention to the historical aspect of the subject. 



The facts recorded by Continental and American Myrmecologists 

 on British species which also form part of their fauna have been 

 largely drawn upon in the preparation of the present work. The 

 geographical distribution in Britain is in all cases given as fully 

 and as carefully as I have been able to ascertain it from published 

 records or from personal observation. It is to be hoped that our 

 knowledge of this distribution will be greatly extended when 

 further workers are induced to study these most interesting insects. 



With regard to the references quoted in the synonymy I have 

 mentioned every name that I have found applied to each species of 

 ant, but have not attempted to quote every reference that has 

 been made to them. It appeared better to restrict the synonymic 

 references to the more important notices ; for, as has already been 

 explained, there is also a vast mass of quotations and references in 

 the text. Some slight conception of the vastness of the general 

 literature on ants may be gathered from a mere perusal of the 

 references, both synonymic and text, that are to be found in the 

 following pages. 



An almost complete list of this literature, up to 1908, will be 

 found in Wheeler's charming book, " Ants, Their Structure, 

 Development and Behavior " (New York, 1910). 



In the present work the native genera and species are almost in- 

 variably described from a long series of British specimens my 

 own captures. To this account the full original description is always 

 added in the language of the describer. 



