MANN: ANTS Ol" TIIK lUMI ISII SOLOMON ISLANDS. Ziii 



soon as the forest goes. The jil)ove tramp species do not usually 

 wander far into the forest, though I^lac/iolcpia lonyijjcn is sometimes 

 seen there under conditions noted hereafter. 



It is interesting that Solrnopsis gcmmata rufa has not yet established 

 itself in the Solomons. Neither does it occur in Fiji, though it is 

 common in hoth New (luinea and in Tahiti. 



One faunal peculiarity is the prevalence of white-tipped antennae 

 among the ants, species of three genera Wheeleripone, Crematogaster 

 {Rhachiocreuia) whcrlcri and Foliirhachis {P. uh/ss-cs, P. osac) ha\ing 

 this unusual, among ants, coloration. 



The ant fauna of the Solomons has been comparatively untouched. 

 ]\Ir. W. W. Froggatt, who \isited the islands for the purpose of study- 

 ing the insects of the coco-nut palm, collected a few species at Tulagi, 

 on Guadalcanar, and in the Russell Group. These, recorded by Forel 

 in a paper on Australian ants (Rev. Suisse zool., 1910, 18, 1-94), are 

 the only species listed from the Solomons. In the present paper are 

 noted 144 forms, representing forty-three genera. 



Ants abound in the forests. Along the paths one sees species of 

 Polyrhachis of the rrhiccns or dacmcli groups on nearly e\ery tree and 

 shrub. In the eastern islands the leaves of single trees sometimes hold 

 a half dozen nests of such forms as Polyrhachis osae and P. miicronata 

 malacnsis. A rotten log will almost certainly contain colonies of VoUen- 

 hovia jM'dcstris, Phopalothrix mahui, Myopoponc casfanea, or Rhytldopo- 

 nera froggatti. On the beaches if one leans against a tree he will proba- 

 bly be covered by swarms of Iridomyrmex myrmecodiac which run about 

 and attempt to bite in an annoying manner very similar to species of 

 Azteca in the American tropics; among trees that have recently been 

 felled, Oecophylla smaragdina nitida makes collecting a misery by its 

 numbers and aggressiveness. 



The last few days of collecting yielded a number of genera and spe- 

 cies not taken previously and I am convinced that the present list 

 contains only a small part of the species that occur in this island group. 

 The interior especially will be productive of many additional forms of 

 great interest, for with the exception of the few that I list from the 

 interior of Malaita, the ant fauna of the highlands is absolutely 

 unknown. 



As far as the zoogeographical position of the Solomons is concerned, 

 the distribution of the ants merel;\' corroborates the opinion of Wallace 

 who, (The ISIalay Archipelago, 1869, 2, p. 435) on the basis of the 

 presence of crimson lories and of cockatoos allied to those of New 

 Guinea, assumes that the fauna is a continuation of the Papuan. 



