144 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Vol. xvi. 



A SLAVE-MAKING FORAY OF THE SHINING 

 AMAZON (POLYERGUS LUCIDUS MAYR). 



By A. C. Burrill, 



Milwaukee, Wis. 



The following observations were made on the afternoon of July 

 21, 1903, during the session of the Yale Summer School of 

 Forestry on the estate of Grey Towers, owned by Mr. James W. 

 Pinchot, Milford, Pike Co., Pa. The slave-holding colony was situ- 

 ated within a few yards and down hill from the camp street, formed 

 by two rows of tents, located on a sandy shoulder of the shale hills, 

 rising in irregular terraces from the broad inner vestibule made by the 

 Sawkill River before entering the gap it has cut through the western 

 palisades of the Delaware River. The altitude of this shoulder or 

 terrace cannot be over 900 feet above sea level. The terrace faces the 

 east, is slightly mounded, and has an inclination towards the south as 

 well. It is turfed in places, sandy in others, and towards the south 

 becomes wet land and wooded. On the steep east slope the friable 

 shale outcrops immediately, and it is near this point that the nest was 

 located. 



The workers who go forth to war are of one general color — a deep 

 red, varying from mahogany to cherry red, almost a deep blood red 

 in certain lights, and as shiny as chitin armor can make them. They 

 are of the size of the black slave ant, Formica fusca var. subsericea, 

 about one quarter inch long, and a little larger than the slave-maker 

 I have usually observed, namely, Formica sanguinea, subsp. rubicunda 

 var. subintegra, in North Brookfield, Mass. 



My attention was called to them at 2:30 p. m., just as the army 

 was crossing our camp street, going in a direction due WSW. The 

 cloudy morning had given way to a noon of sunshine and heat, and 

 now these ants appeared, a shining stream of blood red, swiftly slip- 

 ping over the scant, gravelly turf, their chitin armor glistening in the 

 hot sun like rolling jewels. They formed a living squadron with a 

 width of less than five inches and a length of eighteen to twenty-four 

 inches, regular enough in formation to be enclosed in a parallelogram 

 of such dimensions. This doughty detachment, reckoned at 200 or 

 more by three other observers who witnessed this part of the tactics 



