No.411.] MALES OF SOME TEXAN ECITONS. 161 
were being hurried by them into some deep water-worn cavi- 
ties on the under surface of the stone and into the galleries 
which the ants had excavated in the hard soil. We succeeded, 
nevertheless, in capturing a large portion of the colony and in 
transferring it, together with some of the soil of the nest, to 
a strong canvas bag. The colony, first established in a large 
glass jar, was later placed in a Lubbock nest. The material 
of the original nest was searched on the spot for the pupz of 
the males and for the female, but without success. The fol- 
lowing is a description of the male of E. schmitti drawn from 
fresh specimens. 
Eciton schmitti Emery (Figs. 1 and 2, b), male. Length of 
body, 11-13 mm.; length of fore wing, 10-11 mm. Head, 
thorax, petiole, extreme base of first abdominal segment, ven- 
ter, antennz and legs, except the tarsi, black ; abdomen, tarsi, 
hypopygium, tips of mandibles, and, in some specimens, the 
flagellum of the antennz, the knees and the tips of the tibiae 
fulvous red. Wings blackened, with black veins and stigma, the 
costa and some of the veins yellowish red at the extreme base; 
maxillae and labium yellow. 
Head shining, clothed with long fulvous bairs arising from 
coarse punctures. These hairs are longest on the vertex, 
posterior orbit, mandibles, first antennal joint and clypeus. 
Mandibles rather long, curved at the base only, slightly broad- 
ened in the middle, with convex inner edge ending in short, 
rather blunt points. Antenne longer than the head and 
thorax; tip of the somewhat incrassated scape scarcely reach- 
ing the lateral ocellus; second joint small, remainder of the 
cylindrical flagellum opaque, its basal somewhat thicker than 
1 The nest contained two species of ecitophiles, viz., some small trichopterygid 
beetles and more than a dozen specimens of a small active staphylinid with pale pro- 
notum and elytra (Zcitopora tenella Wasm. n. sp. in litt.). Some of the latter 
lived for nearly a month in the artificial nest. They sought the dry portions of 
the nest and seemed to elude the ants by their rapid mon kie verd 
lurked near the entrance in cracks in the soil. When, during the morning hours, 
the ants were dormant in a compact cluster in the center of the nest, uu pt 
crept from their hiding places and moved about the galleries with less trepi — 
When the ants left the nest towards evening to move about in files on ud plat- 
form, the staphylinids sometimes accompanied them and then often ran off into 
the moat and were drowned. 
