POLYHOMO A AZUMA, A SYNONYM OF KYIDRIS BROWN 
(HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE) 
By William S. Creighton 
Dept, of Biology, College of the City of New York 
During April of 1950 the writer received from Professor Masao 
Azuma of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, a short paper 
dealing with Japanese ants. The paper is a separate from Volume 
1, No. 4 of a publication entitled Hyogo Biology . Its pages are 
numbered 34-37 and it bears the date 30 Aug. 1949. As I shall 
subsequently show, this date is the acceptance date of the article, 
not its date of publication. 
As the paper is almost entirely in Japanese I could make little 
of it other than to note that it carries the original description of a 
new genus Polyhomo a. Some weeks later Dr. Wm. Brown, who had 
meanwhile had the paper translated into English, informed me that 
Polyhomoa is the same as his Kyidris and that, if the date on the 
reprint represents its time of publication, Azuma’s name would 
take precedence. The original description of Kyidris Brown 
was published in the Japanese journal Mushi in the issue which 
appeared on September 20, 1949 (Vol. 20, pars 1, p. 3.) 
Dr. Brown made various efforts to learn the significance of the 
date on Azuma’s article. The only positive response came from 
Dr. Yasumatsu, to whom Dr. Brown had applied for information. 
According to Dr. Yasumatsu the date of publication of Hyogo 
Biology, Volume 1, No. 4 was January 10, 1950. This strongly 
suggested that the date carried on Azuma’s article was an accept- 
ance date. The verification of this surmise required access to the 
entire number of Hyogo Biology containing Azuma’s article. With 
the distribution of the journal restricted to Japan, this possibility 
seemed remote. However Miss Hazel Gay, the Librarian of the 
American Museum of Natural History became interested in the 
problem and was able to secure a full file of Hyogo Biology (Volume 
1, Nos. 1-4) for the Museum library. As nearly as can be ascer- 
tained, this is the only set of this journal in the United States and 
Miss Gay is to be congratulated on the success of her efforts. 
The articles which compose the Number 4 issue of Hyogo Biology 
are separately dated during the year 1949. The dates run from 
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