August, 1890. 1 - 201 



ACULEATE SYMENOPTERA 



COLLECTED BY J. J. WALKER, ESQ., R.N., F.L.S., AT GIBRALTAR 



AND IN NORTH AFRICA. (Part l—HETEROOYNA). 



BY EDWAED SAUNDEBS, F.L.S. 



It is needless to say anything in praise o£ Mr. Walker as a col- 

 lector, as his powers in that capacity are so well known, but I feel it 

 would be ungrateful not to thank him here very cordially for the 

 interesting collection of Hymenoptera which he made for me whilst at 

 Gibraltar and its neighbourhood. It is enough for most collectors to 

 apply themselves specially to one order of insects ; Mr. Walker 

 appears to have applied himself specially to all ; at any rate, the 

 collection of Hymenoptera under notice is so rich in species, that I 

 think it very doubtful if a specialist in that order, with the same 

 opportunities, would have added many to it. 



The present paper deals only with the Heterogyna or ants, amongst 

 which Mr. Walker was very successful. The ants are a good deal 

 more studied and collected than most of the other tribes of the Hy- 

 menoptera, and yet he has succeeded in obtaining two species new to 

 science, one of which belongs to one of our rarest and most strikingly 

 peculiar genera, viz., Amhlyopone, of which hitherto only two species 

 have been recorded from palaearctic regions ; the other is a Mono- 

 morium, and although small and " critical," it has characters which 

 distinguish it well from its congeners ; besides these he has met with 

 many species of rarity, and the winged forms of several, which are 

 of very great interest. 



When I wrote the following list I had not seen Prof. Forel's 

 paper in " Comptes Eendus Soc. Ent. Belg.," April, 1890, p. Ixi, et seq., 

 entitled, " Fourmis de Tunisie et de I'Algerie orientale," in which I 

 see he has already described the (^ and ? of Gamponotus Sicheli, Mayr ; 

 his specimens, however, belong to the variety with the head and thorax 

 in part red, whereas Mr. Walker's Gibraltar specimens are quite 

 black. Professor Forel's localities are of course much to the eastward 

 of Mr. Walker's, and he enumerates many species not found by the 

 latter. Three genera, however, Anochetus, Amhlyopone and Myrmecina, 

 do not appear from the more easterly localities ; the first of these, 

 which used to be considered a great rarity, has turned up abundantly 

 both at Gibrftltar and Tangier under the sympathising eyes of Mr. 

 talker, although not even his attractiveness could induce the (J or 

 true ? to put in an appearance, in fact, it was only in one or two 

 nests out of very many esamined that cither Mr. Lewis or Mr. Walker 



