HISTOKY AND DISTRIBUTION. 13 
present in "fair numbers." At that date it was very scarce in 
Audubon Park and below Canal Street, but was present in considerable 
numbers between Magazine Street and the river. 
"Five or six years later" he found it in St. Peters Avenue, near 
St. Charles, but it was not abundant. This is about 40 squares 
north and west from the point on St. Charles Avenue first referred to 
by Mr. Foster. 
In a personal letter to the senior author, Mr Foster writes as 
follows : 
I have known the species since 1891. At that time it was a rarity in Audubon Park, 
but was very common in the section immediately above Canal Street. Below Canal 
Street it was not at all plentiful. The boundary of the nuisance then was virtually 
from Magazine Street to the river. The coffee ships from Brazil, I understand, have 
always landed about where the wharves are now situated (on the river front, adjoining 
the area above mentioned), but from what we know of the spread of insect nuisances 
the first batch of immigrants must have come in years before I came across then- 
descendants. 
Mr. E. S. G. Titus, 1 quoting Mr. E. Baker, former superintendent of 
Audubon Park, states that in 1896 "they extended over but a small 
area, reaching approximately from Southport docks to Carrollton 
Avenue and from the river bank to Poplar Street," and that "in 1899 
they were first noticed in Audubon Park." This area, from Southport 
to Carrollton Avenue, is located about 5 or 6 miles northwest of the 
area between Magazine Street and the river, noted by Foster to be 
well infested as early as 1891. Mr. Baker, therefore, had not been 
familiar with the original area of heavy infestation, but merely noted 
the species after it had invaded the part of the town where he resided. 
Mr. Titus's information that the species was first noted in Audubon 
Park in 1899 was of course secured from citizens, who failed to note 
the ant until it had reached prodigious numbers in the same place 
that Foster had found it a "rarity" in 1891. The dissemination to 
Audubon Park was undoubtedly- from the heavily infested area 
between Magazine Street and the wharves already referred to. 
The distribution of the species in 1904, as given by Mr. Titus, 2 was 
as follows : 
Across the river in Algiers and adjoining small settlements; at West End, Spanish 
Fort, and Milneburg, summer resorts on Lake Ponchartrain; Bay St. Louis, Miss., a 
summer resort between New Orleans and Mobile; along the Texas & Pacific Rail- 
road at Donaldsonville, Cheney ville, and Alexandria; along the Southern Pacific at 
Thibodeaux, Schriever, Houma, Berwick, Morgan City, Franklin, New Iberia, and 
La Fayette, and at Opelousas. 
There is every reason for supposing that this ant was introduced 
into New Orleans by means of the coffee ships which have for years 
i Bui. 52, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 79, 1905. 2 ibid., p. 82. 
