
86 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. | [Vor. XXXVI. 
and local. Upto the present time I have seen it in only one 
locality, on the flat limestone terraces which form the southern 
slope of Mt. Barker, a short distance from the Colorado River, 
near Austin, Texas. Though but a few acres in extent and on 
warm days fully exposed to the rays of a pitiless sun, these 
terraces are, nevertheless, a rich collecting ground for the 
myrmecologist. All about the place there is something of the 
local color of the dry Mexican plateau, and this peculiarity 
extends also to the ant-life of the region. Here, under the 
flat, detached pieces of lime- 
stone scattered among a 
sparse but interesting vege- 
tation,! occur at least four 
species of grain-storing 
ants: the new Pogonomyr- 
mex described below, a 
golden yellow variety of the 
ubiquitous subtropical and 
tropical “fire ant” (Sode- 
nopsis geminata Fab.), and 
, two species of Pheidole (a 
diminutive new form and 
Ph. kingii André, var. insta- 
ilis Emery). This is also 
one of the few localities in 
which I have seen the little 
mushroom-growing ant 
Cyphomyrmex wheeleri Forel, the first of its genus to be taken 
in the United States.? Here, too, occur Odontomachus clarus 
Roger, Pheidole hyatti Emery, X; iphomyrmex spinosus Pergande, 
and, of course, Dorymyrmex pyramicus Rog., Forelius fatidus 
Buckley, and Camponotus fumidus Rog., var. festinatus Buckley. 
While many of these species abound in this locality, I have 
failed to find more than a dozen nests of the new Pogono- 
myrmex, and these were so close together — within an area of 

.1 A brief account of the flora of this region is given by Oberwetter (86). 
: we oasis discovered a dark variety of C. rimosus Spinola at New Braun- 
