1950 ] 
31 
BOOK REVIEW 
The Ants of North America, by William S. Creighton. Bulle- 
tin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 
vol. 104, pp. 1-585, 57 plates (April, 1950). 
For the first time in this century, there is available in one 
volume a comprehensive treatment of all the genera and species 
of North American (Nearctic) ants. Interest of entomologists 
in this work will be aroused chiefly by the complete keys and 
plates, which allow more accurate determination of our ants 
than has ever before been possible. The major significance of 
this volume does not rest with this quality, however. 
Professor Creighton’s long-awaited work easily ranks with 
the two most fundamental and influential previous works in 
formicid taxonomy, Mayr’s “Formicina Austriaca” and Emery’s 
contributions to the “Genera Insectorum.” Mayr was the first 
to recognize and apply generic differences among ants on a log- 
ical and systematic basis. Emery digested the vast amount of 
world literature and produced a comprehensive classification, 
generic key and catalog for the family. Creighton, in a single 
stroke that cannot be ignored, has applied the modern concepts 
of population systematics to the entire North American fauna. 
In its purpose and effect, Dr. Creighton’s work is a detailed 
generic and specific revision of the Nearctic ants. It is bold, 
sweeping and relentless. The author lucidly exposes the confu- 
sion that has attended the growth of the taxonomy of our fauna. 
Familiar but worthless names of some of our commonest forms 
fall into synonymy by the score. The taxonomic categories are 
restricted to the species and subspecies (geographical race) 
below the subgenus, and the concept of variety is rejected as 
useless and meaningless. The evidence presented for this system 
is so overwhelming and detailed, in the opinion of this reviewer, 
that any myrmecologist clinging to the pentanomial or hex- 
anomial systems will find logical refutation impossible. Al- 
though systematics based on population concepts has presum- 
ably not been completely unknown to myrmecologists, the litera- 
ture of the past ten years abundantly proves that the major 
principles set forth by Ernst Mayr and others have rarely been 
applied correctly in specific cases among the ants. Most 
