June 2, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



859 



Mayr. A few other species have since been 

 added. It is clear that Typhlomyrmex Mayr 

 is valid and not to be replaced by some other 

 name on account of Gistel's Typhlomyrmex, 

 which has not even the status of a synonym. 



More serious is the second case which in- 

 volves Polyrhachis, an important genus com- 

 prising some 300 known species of paleotrop- 

 ical ants. The name Polyrhachis was first 

 suggested by Shuckard in a volume which he 

 published with Swainson in 1840.' On page 

 172 of this work occurs the following sen- 

 tence : " It is in the first division that we find 

 the stingless genera, namely, Formica Linn., 

 Formicina Shkd., Polyergus Latr., Poly- 

 rhachis Shkd. and DoUchoderus Lund, besides 

 several other yet uncharacterized genera which 

 we shall shortly publish." As Shuckard did 

 not live to give a description of Polyrhachis 

 and cites no species as belonging to it, the 

 name is merely a nomen nudum. It was, 

 however, either resuscitated or reinvented in 

 1858 by Frederick Smith.* He described some 

 twenty species of Polyrhachis, with Drury's 

 Formica hihamata as the designated type. In 

 the same year 1858 Gerstacker' based a genus 

 Eoplomyrmus on an African ant, H. schis- 

 taceus Gerst., which is clearly congeneric with 

 the forms included by Smith in Polyrhachis. 

 As Emery has shown,' there is some doubt aa 

 to which generic name was first published. 

 Since Smith's paper was read before the Lin- 

 nean Society in June, 1857, while Gerstacker's 

 was not read before the Berlin Academy till 

 April, 1858, the genus Polyrhachis has been 

 given precedence by subsequent writers. 

 Emery has, however, adopted Hoplomyrmus as 

 a subgeneric name for a number of species 

 which he groups together as the cohort 

 " Polyrhachides carinatse." 



' " On the History and Natural Arrangement of 

 Insects, ' ' London. 



* ' ' Catalogue of the Hymenopterous Insects Col- 

 lected at Sarawak, Borneo ; Mount Ophir, Malacca ; 

 and at Singapore by A. E. Wallace," Journ. Proc. 

 Linn. Soc. Zool., II., 1858, pp. 42-130, 2 pis. 



'^ Monatschr. Ahad. Wiss. Berlin, 1858, p. 262. 



° ' ' Saggio di un Catalogo Sistematico del Generi 

 Camponotus, Polyrhachis e Affini, " Mem. B. 

 Accad. Sci. 1st. Bologna, 1896, p. 776 nota. 



Speculation on the validity of Polyrhachis 

 and Hoplomyrmus loses all its significance in 

 the light of Mr. Eohwer's discovery that Bill- 

 berg in his " Enumeratio Insectorum " pub- 

 lished in 1820, a work of which there seem to 

 be only two copies in America, one in the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, the other in 

 the library of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, had many years previously estab- 

 lished the genus under another name. In this 

 work on p. 104 we find the following: 



' ' G. Myema Eg.- — Formica ol. 



Carinata N. Chaled. Pbr. IHystrix Eg. 2" 

 militaris Afr. Aequin. — 



The " Eg." in this citation stands for " Bill- 

 berg." It is clear that this author cites the 

 two valid Fabrician species Formica carinata 

 and militaris as representatives of a new 

 genus Myrma for what was formerly a portion 

 of the genus Formica Linn. Both of these 

 species have long been regarded as hona fide 

 members of the genus Polyrhachis, which, as 

 has just been shown, was not established till 

 1858. The hystrix cited by Billberg is a 

 nomen nudum, if it be not the Formica 

 hystrix of Latreille and Eabricius, which is in 

 turn a synonym of Atta (Acromyrmex) octo- 

 spinosa Reich. The " Eg." after the name 

 wotild seem to preclude this latter supposition. 

 Be this as it may, however, there can be no 

 doubt concerning the two other species, one of 

 which, F. militaris, may properly be regarded 

 as the type of the genus Myrma. This ease 

 seems, therefore, to be quite clear and to re- 

 quire, in obedience to our code of zoological 

 nomenclature, the substitution of Myrma for 

 Polyrhachis. Although this is a deplorable 

 change, owing to the large number of citations 

 of ants under Smith's generic name, there is, 

 nevertheless, a slight gain in brevity and 

 euphony. . I would suggest, however, that 

 Polyrhachis Smith be retained as a subgeneric 

 name for the type P. hihamata Drury and the 

 small cohort of allied species (hellicosa E. 

 Smith, ypsilon Emery, craddochi Bingham and 

 lamellidens F. Smith) which Emery calls 

 Polyrhachides hamatffi. The typical sub- 

 genus Myrma will replace Hoplomyrmus, 



