90 
Psyche 
[June 
ago Dr. David Fairchild sent me a number of specimens 
that had been taken by his daughter, Miss Nancy Fairchild, 
at Cocoanut Grove, Florida, with the comment that their 
stings were painful. This ant is often abundant in the coffee 
plantations of Porto Rico where it is known as the “hormi- 
guilla” and proves to be very annoying to the berry- 
pickers. It is not infrequently transported to northern 
ports with orchids and other tropical plants. I possess a 
series of workers and winged females taken by Mr. F. B. 
Shaw in orchids from Colombia at quarantine in New York 
City, and Donisthorpe 1 has the following remarks on its 
occurrence in England: “I first discovered this very small 
species in Kew Gardens in 1907 ; it is one of the commonest 
ants at Kew, being abundant in the propagating pits and 
some other houses. It nests in and under flower-pots, in the 
leaf-sheaves of Piper obliquum v. eximium, etc. and its 
males and females, which are very large in comparison with 
the workers, occur in December and January in the nests, 
and sometimes on the walls of the hot-houses. A small 
“woodlouse” somewhat like Platyarthrus hoffmanseggi, and 
the little spider Diblemma donisthorpei Camb., which is 
superficially very like the worker ants, are usually found in 
the nests. In 1922 Halkyard took it in a banana store in 
Manchester.” 
While it is probable that both the Iridomyrmex and the 
Wasmannia may eventually become established in green- 
houses in many parts of the United States, they will be able 
to survive out of doors only in the very restricted tropical 
portions of the country. 
iBritish Ants, 2nd ed. 1927 p. 393. 
