THE ANTS OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM. vg 
rhamm, sinapis, rapae. With three broods: argiolus, napi, brassicae. 
The first lot mentioned emerges either in July (altheae, machaon), ov in 
August (dorilis, medon), or during these two months; they have the 
characteristics of the I. brood, except rivwlaris, which has those of the 
II. brood. The second lot emerges first at the end of June and in the 
first days of July, then again in August, but precocious individuals 
appear sometimes even at the end of July, when the old ones of the I. 
brood are still flying ; thus it happens that the I. emerge when in the 
plain the II. is flying, and that the II. emerges between its own epoch 
and that of the ILI. brood. In rapae the morphological characteristics of 
the two last broods of the plain are found mixed in the II. during all 
the emergence. Of the species with three broods the II. begins towards 
the 10th July, when the late individuals of the I. are still numerous ; 
the III. begins towards the 10th August, and 1 have both seen it 
flying and reared it from the 15th to the 25th from eggs laid towards 
15th July by a female of the II. brood of napi; the three broods are 
distinguished by the same characteristics as those of the plain. I 
have observed at the Abetone, in the Pistoia Appennines, that napi 
had three broods brought near to each other exactly as at Valdieri and 
at the same epochs, owing to the delay of three months of the 
beginning of the I. as compared to Florence, of two months of the 
II., and owing to one month’s anticipation of the III. The heat and 
drought probably delay this last in the plain. 
(Lo be continued.) 
The Ants of France and Belgium.* 
' By H..DONISTHORPE, F.Z.S,, F.H.S. 
‘Tt is practically impossible up to now to determine with certainty 
any European ant.’”—With this astounding statement Mons. Bondroit 
begins his work! It would thus appear that the work of all those 
myrmecologists who have come before him is of little, if any, 
value, and it has been left to the author of the Ants of France and 
Belgium to set the matter straight! We can only say at once that 
for our part to name any Huropean ant with certainty by the aid of 
Mons. Bondroit’s book is not only practically, but absolutely 
impossible. 
Let us consider for a moment the work of three of the greatest 
authorities on ants in the World—Hmery, Forel, and Wheeler, and 
see how far they have dealt with the Huropean species. Forel in 1874 
published his celebrated Fourmis de la Suisse whicb, in spite of the 
fact that it is naturally a little out of date, after all these years, is still 
justly regarded as one of the best books ever written on ants; more- 
over in 1915 he brought the systematic part of the work up to date. 
Emery in his Palaearctic Ants, 1908-1912, has dealt with most of 
the Huropean genera; and in 1916 he published a fine systematic 
work on the ants of Italy. Wheeler has published various notes and 
papers on Huropean ants; and in 1913 a revision of the ants of the 
genus H'ormica, which of course embraced the Kuropean species. In 
none of the works of these authors are Bondroit’s fancy species to be 
found. 
* Les Fourmis de France et de Belgique, par J. Bondroit, Ann. Soc. Ent. 
France 87 1-174 J-figs. 83 (1918). 
