FORMICA. 267 



" Your ants belong to a group of varieties which I once called 

 truncicolo-pratensis, they are nearly the colour of the var. dusmeti 

 Emery from Norway and Spain, and recently Santschi has dis- 

 covered and distinguished it in our Alps under the name of F. rufa 

 var. alpina in litt. I myself have received it from Norway and 

 the Black Forest, etc., and have also found it in Switzerland. It is 

 distinguished above all by the more narrow head, as Santschi has 

 shown. It has some erect hairs on the tibiae (hairs which fail in 

 true F. rufa) and some sparse hairs on the eyes." 4 



In July, 1913, when again at Rannoch, this time in company 

 with Morice, we visited the same spot where I originally discovered 

 alpina and some seven colonies were observed ; deflated females 

 were found, three in one nest, and two in others, and pseudogynes 

 were present in one nest, but no winged ants were seen 7 . The nests 

 were all small hillocks, chiefly composed of heather, and were 

 distributed over a small area of the moor and its borders. Workers 

 and larvae of a form of Myrmica scabrinodis (before mentioned 

 under that species) and Leptothorax acervorum, were found in two 

 of the nests and the beetle, Notothecta flavipes, also occurred. 



Joy sent me some ants which he took, in July, 1913, at Loch 

 Shin in Sutherland and among them I detected a few workers of 

 the var. alpina. 



As all the ants, both females and workers, in the colonies I have 

 found possess the narrow-shaped heads, it does not seem probable 

 that this is due to parasitism, as suggested by Santschi. 



Formica pratensis Retz. 



[" Fourmi rousse des pres " De Geer Mem. Hist. Ins. 2 1080-81, 1173 Pf. 

 42-12-15 (177 1)] 1 . Formica pratensis Retzius Gen. Spec. Ins. De Geer 75 

 (1783) 2 . Formica rufa Christ Naturg. Ins. 510-511 Pf. 60-7-8 (1791) 3 . " [La 

 fourmi fauve dos noir " Huber Mceurs Fourmis (1810)) 4 . Formica congerens 

 Nylander Acta Soc. Sc. Fenn. 2 906 (1846) 5 : 3 27 6 30 7 (1849); Forster 

 Hym. Stud. 1 17-20 (1850) 8 ; Schenck Jahrb. Ver. Naturk. Nassau 8 IP 

 30-3 10 138 11 (1852) ; Mayr Verb. Zool. Bot. Ver. Wien 5 332-3 (1855) 12 ; 

 F. Smith Cat. Brit. Foss. Hym. 6 (1858) 13 : Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. (n.s.) 4 

 278 (1858) 14 : Ent. Ann. 1858 39 15 : Ent. Mo. Mag. 2 29 (1865) 16 : Ent. 

 Ann. 1865 85 17 87 18 : 1866 126-7 19 ; Buchanan- White Scot. Nat. 1 222 

 (1872) 20 ; H. Muller Berfrucht. Blumen 464 (1873) 21 . Formica rufa r. 

 pratensis Forel Denkschr. Schweiz. Ges. Naturw. 26 52 22 219 23 365-S 24 

 373 25 408 26 (1874). Formica pratensis Forel Bull. Soc. Vaud. Sc. Nat. 14 

 58 61 (1875) 27 . Formica congerens Saunders Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1880 

 205 28 ; Parfitt Trans. Devon. Assn. Sc. Art. 12 513 (1880) 29 . Formica pratensis 

 Er. Andre Spec. Hym. Europe 2 184 (188 1) 30 . Formica congerens Bignell 

 Young Nat. 3 143 (1882) 31 . Formica pratensis Forel Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. 

 30 136 138-9 (1886) 32 ; Wasmann Tijdschr. Ent. 34 46-7 (1891) 33 ; Dalla 

 Torre Cat. Hym. 7 204 (1893) 34 . Formica congerens Farren- White Ants' 

 Ways 202-3 35 231-2 36 (1895). Formica rufa race pratensis Saunders Hym. 

 Acul. 21 (1896) 37 . Formica pratensis Forel Zool. Jahrb. Suppl. 7 580 (1904) 38 ; 

 Wasmann Biol. Centralb. 25 199-200 (1905) 39 : Zeitschr. Wissens. Insekten- 

 biol. 2 42 (1906)*; Wheeler Journ. Psychol-Neurol. 13 426-427 (1908) 41 ; 

 Wasmann Arch. Trim. Inst. R. Grand-Ducal Luxemburg. 4 13-18 (1909) 42 . 



