342 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. Xo. 819- 



The trustees of the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural College have established a department 

 of zology and geology with Mr. C. E. Gordon 

 as its head. 



Dr. Bibd T. Baldwin, who for the past year 

 was a lecturer in the University of Chicago, 

 has accepted a call to an associate professor- 

 ship in education and head of the school of 

 practise teaching in the University of Texas. 



Dr. Feederick P. Gat, of the Harvard Med- 

 ical school, has been appointed head of the 

 department of pathology of the University of 

 California. Dr. H. B. Graham, who recently 

 returned to Berkeley from Austria, has been 

 appointed assistant professor of hygiene. 



Dr. F. L. Haley, of Hoosick Falls, N. Y., 

 has been made professor of physiologic chem- 

 istry and bacteriology in the medical depart- 

 ment of the University of Alabama. Other 

 additions to the faculty are: Dr. James F. 

 Harrison, professor of chemistry and materia 

 mediea; Dr. M. Toulmin Gaines, associate 

 professor of pathology and histology, and Dr. 

 William H. Gates, associate professor of thera- 

 peutics. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



. THE LUMINOSITY OF TERMITES 



In Science of January 7, 1910, I published 

 a note in regard to the luminosity of termites. 

 To that communication I am now able to make 

 the following additions. Herbert H. Smith, a 

 thoroughly trustworthy naturalist, makes the 

 following note at page 139 of his work on 

 " Brazil, the Amazons, and the Coast," New 

 York, 1879: 



There aie white ant-hills along the sides — pale 

 glows of phosphorescent light, like eoals in the 

 ashes. They look ghostly in the darkness. 



In a footnote he adds : 



The phosphorescence is in the insects; and I 

 believe that it is peculiar to one or two forest 

 species. 



The locality where Mr. Smith observed this 

 phosphorescence is near Santarem in the val- 

 ley of the Tapajos. 



Bearing on the other side of the question I 

 here give a translation of a letter just received 

 from my friend Dr. Joaquim Lustosa, a 



Brazilian mining engineer living at Lafay- 

 ette, state of Minas Geraes, of whom I have 

 made inquiries about this matter. Dr. Lus- 

 tosa writes as follows under date of July 8, 

 1910: 



I have just received authentic information to 

 the effect that in the state of Matto Grosso, in 

 the low swampy lands along streams, and espe- 

 cially in the rainy months beginning with October 

 myriads of fireflies are seen covering the ground. 

 My informant, who has lately come from the 

 upper part of Matto Grosso where it joins Bolivia, 

 tells me that he has seen at night many of the 

 nests of white ants that have been abandoned by 

 the ants themselves entirely covered by fireflies 

 that come from the small openings over the whole 

 surface of the anthill. Is it possible that the 

 fireflies select these abandoned anthills as places 

 in which to rear their lan'as? . . . Unfortunately, 

 I have never observed anything of the kind here- 

 about, though I have been interested in the sub- 

 ject in order to furnish you information. 



It should be noted that the case mentioned 

 by Dr. Joao Severiano da Fonseca and re- 

 ferred to in my communication of December 

 13, 1909, was seen in Matto Grosso in the re- 

 gion mentioned by Dr. Lustosa. 



J. C. Branner 

 Stanford University, Cal., 

 August 9, 1910 



4 HONEY ANTS IN UTAH 



In the autumn of 1908, Mr. Guy Hart, a 

 student in the Salt Lake High School, brought 

 to me for identification some of the repletes of 

 the honey ant. He had collected them at Gar- 

 field, Utah, a smelter town at the southern end 

 of Great Salt Lake. They had been found 

 while excavating for a house, and Mr. Hart 

 said that they had been noticed on several 

 occasions during the progress of excavations. 



I sent a few of these repletes t6 Professor 

 W. M. Wheeler, and he determined them as a 

 variety of Myrmecocystus mexicanus. This 

 variety is closely related to horti-deorum, but 

 the repletes are somewhat smaller than those 

 of that variety. 



Garfield is at an elevation of about 4,243 

 feet. Its latitude is approximately 40° 42' N". 

 Honey ants have not heretofore been reported 



