2 Annals of the South African Museum. 



me in London by Miss M. Munro. Dr. Louis Peringuey has given 

 me most generous aid in searching for references, and in lending me 

 books from the library of the South African Museum, and also in 

 submitting to my inspection the whole of the collections of ants 

 in that institution. I have also received much valuable help from 

 Dr. Hans Brauns, of Willowmore, who has lent me selections 

 from his library and has collected for me many specimens which 

 I could not otherwise have obtained. I am particularly indebted 

 to Dr. A. Forel, who has identified nearly all the species which have 

 been taken by my friends or by myself, and without whose generous 

 assistance the difficulties in attempting this work could hardly have 

 been overcome. Messrs. Cooper, Marley, Zealley, and Macgregor 

 have also collected for me, and to them and to Father Kendal, S.J., 

 of Bulawayo, who most kindly corrected translations from the 

 Italian for me, I wish to tender my sincere thanks. I also wish to 

 express my gratitude to the Eoyal Society of South Africa for a 

 grant of £45 in aid of this work, whereby I was enabled to travel 

 to Capetown and copy many references from the works in the 

 library of the South African Museum, and to proceed subsequently 

 to Willowmore and Durban for the purpose of collecting the ants 

 of those regions. 



The title, " South African," chosen for this work is admittedly 

 rather indefinite, for in the geographical distribution of the ants, 

 as in the case of nearly all the Aculeate Hymenoptera, no definite 

 limits, such as Sclater's original South African Eegion, or its various 

 modifications, can be adopted. Our present knowledge of the ants 

 of Africa is not sufficient to enable us to draw any solid deductions 

 from a survey of their distribution. The Sahara, however, forms 

 a fairly strong boundary, separating off the North African (i.e. 

 Mediterranean) forms from those of the Ethiopian Eegion, yet 

 several species pass through it by the gap of the Nile Valley ; 

 there are also not a few species which occur all along the East 

 Coast from Abyssinia downwards, and several species originally 

 discovered in the equatorial regions of the Congo have been taken 

 by myself in Southern Ehodesia. 



It is therefore with a view to reducing the work to convenient 

 proportions that I have decided to limit this monograph to the 

 inclusion of those species which have been found in British South 

 Africa, part of Portuguese East Africa, and German South-west 

 Africa, but also including some species which, although recorded 

 outside these limits, may yet be expected to be found in them in the 

 future. 



