498 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



53. Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius). 



Formica melanocephala Fabr., Ent. syst., 1793, 2, p. 353 § . 



Gundlach, who cites this tropicopolitan ant as Micromyrma me- 

 lanocephala, gives Cogimar as a locality. He states that " it is often 

 found in houses and is known as 'hormiga boticaria'." There is a 

 single worker (no. 286) in his collection. It was seen in all the 

 localities which I visited (Cogimar, Havana, Aguada de Pasajeros, 

 Bolondron, Sarabanda, etc.), and Mr. Patricio Cardin has sent me 

 specimens from Santiago de las Vegas. It frequently nests in small 

 hollow twigs or between the leaves of Tillandsias. The Cuban name 

 "hormiga boticaria" probably refers to the peculiar "Tapinoma 

 odor" of crushed specimens. 



54. Tapinoma litorale Wheeler var. cubaensis, var. nov. 



The worker differs from that of the typical litorale of tropical Florida 

 and the Bahamas only in having longer antennae, the scapes reaching 

 about twice their diameter beyond the posterior corners of the head, 

 with the basal funicular joints slightly longer than broad. In the 

 female the upper surface of the body is uniformly dark brown, darker 

 than in the female of the typical form and not variegated with yellow. 

 The posterior borders of the gastric segments are only narrowly 

 yellow and the body is slightly more pubescent and therefore more 

 opaque. The male has the head and gaster black and the thorax 

 dark brown, so that this sex is also much darker than the correspond- 

 ing sex of litorale. 



I have taken several colonies of this variety in hollow twigs along 

 the banks of the Rio de Hanabana and about fifteen miles from 

 Bolondron, also in the Cienaga de Zapata. There is a single worker 

 from Cayamas (E. A. Schwarz) in my collection. The workers of a 

 single colony taken in a Tillandsia at Aguada de Pasajeros are dis- 

 tinctly larger, but can hardly be supposed to represent a distinct 

 variety, since the workers of Tapinoma often vary considerably in 

 size in different colonies of the same species (T. sessile erraticum, etc.) 



55. Dorymyrmex pyramicus (Roger). 



Prenolepis pyramica Roger, Berl. ent. zeitschr., 1863, 7, p. 160 § . 



Several workers of the typical brown form of this species have been 



received from Mr. Patricio Cardin, who took them in Santiago de 



