1878. ] Mound-Making Ants of the Alleghenies. 431 
MOUND-MAKING ANTS OF THE ALLEGHENIES 
BY REV. HENRY C. MCCOOK. 
poke following notes are substantially extracts from an article 
printed in the Transactions of the American Entomological 
Society.) They relate to the familiar mound-making ants which 
inhabit the mountain regions of the Atlantic States, An 
Pennsylvania. These are insects in form s 
as represented in the accompanying fig- 
ures, the head and thorax being of a fal- 
low or reddish color, the abdomen a 
glossy black. There are three forms of 
workers, the major, minor and dwarf, by 
whom the entire external economy of 
the formicary, and for the most part the — 
internal also, is conducted. The females — 
closely resemble the workers-major, but yy, 1. Worker: Major, The 
are larger, more robust, and in the virgin Jines beneath the latter figure 
state are winged. The males are winged, show the natural length of the 
are smaller than the ` females, from ‘ee worker forms. 
whom they are further readily distinguished by the smaller head, 
an additional segment to the abdomen and the different form of 
the same. In the original paper these ants are referred to as 
Formica rufa, the name which they bear (identified by Frederick 
Smith, of the British Museum) in the collection of the Entomo- 
logical Society. They very closely resemble these ants, but on 
the authority of Dr. Auguste Forel, the author of the “ Swiss 
‘Ants” (Les Fourmis de la Swisse), to whom specimens were sent, 
they are referred to in the following notes as Formica exsectoides 
Forel, a new American ally of F. exsecta. Their habits do- 
not greatly differ from those of F. rufa of Europe, but are nearly 
if not quite identical with those of Z. exsecta. 
It is further premised that the observations given below 
were made while, encamped in the midst of a colony, or “ant 
city,” of more than 1600 nests, situated upon the eastern slope of 
Brush mountain, Pennsylvania. These nests are conical eleva- — 
tions of various sizes, the largest measured being fifty-eight feet _ 
around the base, twenty-four feet over the top, and forty-two 
1 Vol. VI, 1877, p. 253, sqq. The entire pare is published ee by John a l À 
A. Black, 1334 Eu ie Phila Paes 
