EONEY-MAKING ANT OF TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 365 



national calamities occasioned by insects is worthy of endorsement by every 

 farmer and fruit-grower in the land. The petition to congress for sucli 

 commission should receive universal signature. 7. I would finally suggest 

 that if our people were more generally familiar with the subject of entomology 

 and were able to distinguish between the beneficial and injurious insects, 

 our universal enemies would be more intelligently and effectually resisted. 

 To this end I would earnestly recommend the introduction into our schools 

 of the elements of this extremely practical science. Independently of the 

 educational advantages of natural history studies, the "jjractical" value of 

 a knowlege of plants and insects, should forcibly commend botany and ento- 

 mology to these who determine the course of training in our common schools. 



THE HONEY-MAKING ANT OF TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 

 (Myi'mecocystus 3fexicanits, \yestwood.) 



The natural history of this very curious sjDCcies is so little known that 

 the preservation of every fact connected with its economy becomes a matter 

 of considerable scientific importance, and the following observations gleaned 

 from Captain W. B. Fleeson of San Francisco, who has recently had an op- 

 portunity of studying the aunts in their native haunts, may, it is hoped, be 

 not without interest. The community appears to consist of three different 

 kinds of ants, probably of two separate genera, whose offices in the general 

 order of the nest seems to be entirely apart from each other, and who per- 

 form the labor alotted to them without the least encroachment upon the 

 duties of their fellows. The larger number of individuals consists of yellow 

 working ants of two kinds, one of which, of a pale golden yellow color, 

 about one-third of an inch in length, acts as nursers and feeders of the hon- 

 ey-making kind, who do not quit the interior of the nest, "their sole purpose 

 being, apparently, to elaborate a kind of honey, which they are said to dis- 

 charge into prepared receptacles, and w4iich constitutes the food of the entire 

 population. In these honey-secreting workers the abdomen is distended 

 into a large, globose, bladder-like form, about the size of a ]3ea." The third 

 variety of ant is much larger, black in color, and with very formidable man- 

 dibles. For the purpose of better understanding the doings of this strange 

 community, we will designate them as follows : 



No. 1 — Yellow workers; nursers and feeders. No. 2 — Yellow workers , 

 honey-makers. No. 3 — Black workers ; guards and jDurveyors. The site 

 chosen for the nest is usually some sandy soil in the neighborhood of shrubs 

 and flowers, and the space occupied is about from four to five feet square 

 Unlike the nest of most other ants, however, the surface of the soil is usually 

 undisturbed, and, but for the presence of the insects themselves, presents a 

 very different appearance from the ordinary communities, the ground hav- 

 ing been subjected to no disturbance, and not pulverized and rendered loose 



