2 
William Morton Wheeler. 
from the insects, but when this is done, only a black, crumbling, residue 
of decomposed chitin remains. At least this was all I saw of the few 
common specimens which I attempted to free from their matrix. 
Kornilowitsch x ) in a paper cited by Klebs, seems to have shown that 
even the fine histological details of the leg musculature may be 
preserved in Diptera and Neuroptera, but I have never observed such 
details in the ants in situ, although the chitin of their legs is offen 
very transparent. 
All the little blocks of amber containing the specimens belong- 
ing to the various collections had been carefully cut and polished, 
and, in many instances, enclosed in cells full of Canada balsam and 
mounted on slides, to preserve them from the slow darkening in color 
and partial opacity, which the originally very transparent, pale yellow 
amber is liable to take on when long exposed to the air. This change 
is, unfortunately, very noticeable in Mayr’s types, which were simply 
glued to slides and are now much darker and more obscure than they 
could have been when the distinguished myrmecologist described them 
nearly half a Century ago. All the specimens in the Klebs, Brussels, 
Berlin and Haren Collections and most of those in the Königsberg 
Collection are carefully numbered. Except in cases where there are 
very many specimens of the same species, I have taken pains to eite 
all these numbers, so that my types and offen also a long series of 
cotypes may be readily recognized by any future investigator. 
Mayr’s work on the ants of the Baltic amber published in 1868 * 2 ) 
is such a thorough and comprehensive masterpiece that even the much 
larger amount of material which has since accumulated, necessitates 
comparatively few changes. That this work has enormously facilitated 
my study, goes without saying. As his species are all easily re- 
cognizable from his descriptions and figures, notwithstanding the 
somewhat diagrammatic character of the latter, I have deemed it unne- 
cessary to repeat his tables or to rewrite the majority of his diagnoses 
and the history of the older literature of the subject. Since 1868 
very little attention has been devoted to the amber ants. Emery 3 ) and 
Ern. Andre 4 ) have described a few species, and the former has mono- 
Hat sich die Struktur der quergestreiften Muskeln im fossilen Bernstein er- 
halten? Sitzb. Naturf. Gesell. Dorpat, XIII, 1903, pp. 198—203. 
2 ) Die Ameisen des baltischen Bernsteins. Beiträge zur Naturkunde Preußens, heraus- 
gegeben v. d. physik.-ökonomischen Gesellschaft zu Königsberg, I, 1868, 102 pp. 5 pls. 
3 ) Deux Fourmis de l’Ambre de la Baltique. Bull. Soc. Ent. France, 1905, 
pp. 187—189, 2 Figs. 
4 ) Notice sur les fourmis fossiles de Pambre de la Baltique et description de deux 
espöces nouvelles. Bull. Soc. Zool. France XX, 1895, pp. 80—84. 
