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Mr. J. M. Hutchinson. The specimens exhibited included 
six **globulars"— to use Mr. McCook's term in regard 
to the American species, Myrmecocystiis hortus-deorum — 
all with the abdomen enormously distended with nectar ; but 
other examples presented to the South-African Museum by 
Mr. Hutchinson comprised various individuals exhibiting 
different gradations of distention, thus indicating that the con- 
dition of absolute repletion is arrived at gradually, and may 
possibly be reached by some few only of those individuals who 
feed, or are fed, up for the purpose. Certainly, in the nests 
examined by Mr. Hutchinson, in Natal, the number of 
" globulars " was very small in proportion to the population of 
ordinary workers ; and it is somewhat difficult to understand of 
what particular value as a food reserve so very small a quantity 
of nectar so exceptionally stored can be. Mr. Trimen added, 
that while the occurrence of "Honey" Ants in Southern 
North America, South Australia, and he believed also 
in India, was well known, the Natal species now exhibited 
was the first African one that had come under his notice. 
Professor Eiley, in the course of the discussion which 
followed, said that the American species referred to by Mr. 
Trimen was common from Colorado to Mexico, and that the 
honey-bearing ants were often very numerous in its 
communities; he further pointed out the fact that many 
common species of ants have the power of distending the 
abdomen with honey, and that this was very evident in 
certain species of Formica. The specimens exhibited by Mr. 
Trimen were subsequently submitted to Prof. Forel, who in- 
forms him that the "Honey" Ants, with the immensely dis- 
tended abdomen, are workers of a new species of Plagiodera 
(Subfamily CamponotidcB), and that all the "Honey" Ants 
known to him, except Leptomyrmex varians, Emery, belonging 
to the Subfamily Dolichoderida, are members of the Cam- 
ponotidce. Prof. Forel states that these Natalian examples 
are the first instance known of a true "Honey" Ant in the 
Ethiopian Kegion ; although he had found workers of Cam- 
ponotus rufoglaucusj var. micans, Nyl, in Tunisia, with the ab- 
domen " assez gonfle de miel," and that, as this ant ranges 
throughout Africa, it very probably presents the same con- 
