December 2, 1901.J 



SCIENCE. 



767 



second, its efficiency as a boll weevil destroyer. 

 My paper dealt largely with the former, since 

 it is, of course, the conditio sine qua. non of 

 the latter problem. Dr. Cook calls my re- 

 marks a 'post facto prognosis,' wishing, I 

 suppose, to create the impression by this con- 

 tradictio in terminis, that his Bchmerzens- 

 kind, the kelep, to which the Department of 

 Agriculture has been standing sponsor, is 

 doing remarkably well. I will pass over the 

 fact that this implication is hardly borne out 

 by the latest reports from the field of experi- 

 mentation, and consider some of Dr. Cook's 

 statements. 



He says that ' it was obvious to Professor 

 Wheeler from the first that the case was hope- 

 less.' This statement is false, inasmuch as 

 neither I nor anybody else outside of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture could have had any 

 opinion on this subject till very recently, for 

 the very simple reason that the scientific 

 name of the ant was not made public by 

 the Department till its great value as a boll 

 weevil destroyer had been boomed in all the 

 newspapers of the country. The kelep, as 

 Dr. Cook informs us, was discovered ' on the 

 cotton April 20, 1904, in Alta Vera Paz, 

 Guatemala, and its efficiency as a destroyer 

 of the Mexican cotton boll weevil was dem- 

 onstrated the following day.' But even in his 

 official report, which could hardly have been 

 published before August 1, the scientific name 

 of the ant was not given and it was several 

 weeks later before I could ascertain it. 



Dr. Cook further says that I have disre- 

 garded 'several facts which might have miti- 

 gated the confidence of the prophesy.' The 

 first of these is a straw fact of Dr. Cook's own 

 manufacture, namely the supposition that I 

 am of the opinion that Ectatomma is very 

 much like Odontomachus* I am at a loss to 



* Dr. Cook is ' ready to follow Mayr and Ash- 

 mead in assigning tliese genera to separate 

 families.' In otlier words, the genus Odonto- 

 machus should be separated from the Ponerinae 

 (or Poneridoe as Cook and Ashmead persist in 

 calling the group) and made the type of a distinct 

 family, the Odontomachidae. This was Mayr's 

 opinion many years ago, but it is probable that 

 he now believes with the eminent myrmecologists 

 Emery and Forel that Odontomachus (together 



know how I could have given this iinpression, 

 as the only time I associated these genera 

 directly was when I considered Odontomachus 

 to be more dominant, more variable and more 

 widely distributed than other Ponerinse, Ecta- 

 tomma, of course, included. This statement 

 has not even been met, to say nothing of 

 having been refuted, by Dr. Cook. * 



It is, in fact. Dr. Cook himself who should 

 be glad to have the kelep more like Odonto- 

 machus. At any rate, he makes a futile at- 

 tempt to show that the kelep is a dominant, 

 ' enterprising ' ant, with large colonies (i. e., 

 prolific) and highly adaptable. But closer 

 examination shows that the kelep is like the 

 other Ponerinte in being below par in all of 

 these respects. It is ' dominant ' only in the 

 cotton fields of Guatemala, and very rare or 

 absent elsewhere in that country. It is ' en- 

 terprising ' although ' compared with the ner- 

 vous haste of many other species, its motions 



with Anochetus and Ghampsomyrmex) can not 

 be separated as a distinct family, but has hardly 

 more than tribal value. The only characters on 

 which such a separation could be eflfected are 

 the peculiar shape of the petiole and mandibles. 

 But the very same kind of a petiole is found in 

 certain undoubted Ponerinae, like the South Ameri- 

 can Leptogenys unistimulosa, and if the shape 

 of the jaws is such an important character, we 

 should have to make several families out of such 

 genera as the myrmicine Strumigenys, some 

 species of which, like 8. louisianw, grandidieri, 

 etc., have mandibles very much like Odontomachus. 

 But this would be absurd, hence it is best to let 

 well enough alone. Moreover, the shape of the 

 mandibles in different genera of the Ponerina; 

 (e. g., in Harpegnathus, Thaumatomyrmex, Mys- 

 trium, etc.) is so diverse that this subfamily 

 would have to be resolved into a great number of 

 families, if we were to follow Cook's example with 

 Odontomachus. Undoubtedly this would give a 

 fine opportimity for a display of the mihi itch, 

 but the cause of science would be little furthered 

 thereby. 



* The larva of Ectatomma is much more primi- 

 tive in its characters than that of many other 

 Ponerinse, whereas the larva of Odontomachus is 

 much like that of the typical genus Ponera. 

 This fact, too, has an important bearing on the 

 taxonomic position of Odontomachus discussed in 

 the preceding foot-note. 



