216 



usually in moderately shady spots, where each colony makes 

 numerous scattered or contiguous craters, often several inches 

 in diameter, with very large entrance galleries, descending 

 perpendicularly and deeply into the ground. These nests 

 are often around the roots of trees, more rarely under pros- 

 trate logs or large stones. Longiceps and pythia, and doubt- 

 less also barbigula, which I have not seen alive, are nocturnal, 

 so that although their earthworks are conspicuous objects in 

 the "bush," they are quite deserted by the ants during the 

 day. The colonies seem to be rather populous, but the 

 individual workers are very timid. It is certainly astonishing 

 that such small, slender insects should be able to build such 

 extensive nests. At Koah, in Northern Queensland, I visited 

 a piece of dry forest in which whole acres of the • soil were 

 covered with the craters of longiceps. These were larger and 

 more compact than those seen in sandy localities in Queens- 

 land and New South Wales, and had very smooth, funnel-like 

 entrances. At first I believed the nests at Koah to be the 

 work of a distinct species, but the ants proved to be indis- 

 tinguishable from typical longiceps in the other localities, so 

 that the differences in the nests were probably due to differ- 

 ences in the soil. At Salisbury Court, near Uralla, New 

 South Wales, while camping in the woods with Mr. W. W. 

 Froggatt and his son, 1 was able to watch the workers of 

 longiceps during the night, while they were busily bringing 

 out their pellets of sand and earth and depositing them on 

 the craters. The workers of barbigula have a true 

 "psammophore" of long hairs on the lower-surface of the 

 head, like many desert ants of various genera (Pogonomyrmex, 

 Cratomyrmex, Messor, Holcomyrmex, Myrmecocystiis, Cata- 

 glyphis, Melophorus, etc.), and therefore probably use this 

 organ as a basket in which to carry out the moist sand-pellets. 

 A note on the label in one bottle of this species received from 

 the Museum of South Australia refers to its "nesting in 

 sand." The following descriptions and figures will facilitate 

 the identification of the Australian species of Aphaenogaster. 



Aphaenogaster (Nystalomyrma) longiceps, F. Smith. 

 PI. xxi., figs. 1-3;- pi. xxii., figs. 1-4. 



Myrmica (Monomorium) longiceps, F. Smith: Cat. Hvmen., 

 Brit. Mus., 6, 1856, p. 128, female. 



Atta antipodum, F. Smith: ibid., p. 166, female. 



Myrmica longiceps, Lowne : Entomolgist, 2, 1865, p. 334. 



Aphaenogaster longiceps. Mayr : Journ. Mus. Godeff, 12, 

 1876, p. 43, male, female (in part); Verb.: Zool. hot. Ges. Wien., 

 36, 1886, p. 359; Dalla Torre: Cat. Hymen., 7, 1893, p. 103. 



