8536 



Entomological Society, 



hood of Sydney, and so far as he had then been able to ascertain, eighteen of the 

 thirty-three species were undescribed. Mr. Lowne bad also been able, by personal ob- 

 servation of the nests, to unite four reputed species into two ; Formica agilis, Sm., and 

 F. intrepida, Kirby, were (as was long ago suspected by Mr. F* Smith), the large and 

 small workers of one species; and F. delecla, Smith, received from Hunter's River, 

 was the female of F. purpurea, Sm., a species received from Melbourne, showing that 

 this interesting ant was distributed over a wide range of three hundred geographical 

 miles, in which the fauna and flora varied considerably. The communities of 

 Formica purpurea formed a nest very similar to that of our F. rufa, but built with 

 small fragments of stone ; near Sydney, where dark iron stone formed their building 

 material, the hill was composed entirely of it; but in the mountains, where the 

 rock was white, they carefully covered their hill with minute fragments of charcoal, 

 which was very abundant in the Australian bush, a proceeding probably adapted to 

 increase the internal temperature of their nest. As a rule, the nests of the genus 

 Formica in New South Wales were subterranean, but one species excavated the hard 

 boles of several species of Eucalyptus. The Australian Polyhachi did not, so far as 

 Mr. Lovvne's observations went, make a nest on leaves, like those of India, but 

 excavated a domicile in the stumps of trees or under stones ; whether those insects 

 made any other nest at a later period in the year, he did not know. Crematogaster 

 was a very numerous genus near Port Jackson, and, true to its character in Brazil 

 and elsewhere, the species did not construct any nest, but lived under cracked bark 

 and stones, or in the rotten stems of Xanthoreas. The Myrmecinae were the most for- 

 midable looking of all the Australian genera, and armed with a sting which inflicted 

 very severe but transitory pain. One species, M. nigrocincta, had the power of taking 

 almost incredible leaps ; it ran and leapt alternately, so that its progression was 

 analogous to that of the Cicindelae ; although the ant was not more than an inch 

 long, its leaps on ordinary occasions were about* a foot in length, and when alarmed 

 it had been seen by Mr. Lowne to leap a yard, rising a foot from the ground : he had 

 been unable to discover anything in its structure to account for this remarkable power, 

 which, however, was possessed by some other tropical ants. 



Papers read. 



The Secretary read a paper by Mr. Hewitson, entitled " Descriptions of two new 

 Diurnal Lepidoptera," one of which belonged to the genus Papilio, the other to the 

 genus Morpho. 



The Secretary also read a paper by Mr. Roland Trimen, entitled " Descriptions of 

 three new Species of Anthocharis, and a new Species of Pais, from Tropical South- 

 western Africa." They were described under the names of Anthocharis Regina, 

 A. Phaenon, A. Eosphorus, and Pais pulchra. Specimens of A. Regina and 

 A. Eosphorus, which bad been sent from Cape Town in a letter, were exhibited ; 

 A. Regina was a species of singular beauty, allied to A. lone. — /. W. D. 



