Mem. Nat. Mds. Viot., vxii, 1934. 
NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN ANTS, WITH DESCRIPTIONS OE 
NEW SPECIES AND A NEW GENUS. 
By John Clark , Entomologist , National Museum. 
(Plate I.) 
In a recent paper dealing with colony-founding by Ants of 
the genus Myrmecia (Science, vol. 76, pp. 532-533, 1932) Dr. 
W. M. Wheeler gives a description of the queen and her incipient 
colony ; and he deals with the same subject in greater detail 
in a later publication, in book-form, entitled "Colony-Founding 
Among Ants,” Harvard University Press, 1933. In this fine 
work the author gives fully the results of his observations in 
Australia during 1931. In addition to describing colony- 
founding by the primitive Australian Ponerinae, he has described 
a number of new forms and supplied notes on many obscure 
species. 
On pages 21-22 he quotes in full an abbreviated account 
of colony-founding published by me (Victorian Naturalist, 
xlii, pp. 135-144, 1925). Commenting on my account of these 
he says (p. 22) : — 
“It would seem, therefore, that the Myrmecia queen, apart from 
feeding her larvae on insect food, founds her colony in precisely the 
same manner as the young queens of the higher ants. This is not the 
case, however, since a significant idiosyncrasy of her behaviour has 
been overlooked, as will appear in my account of Myrmecia regularis 
and several other species.” 
Regarding Myrmecia regularis, he says (p. 26), after dealing 
with this ant and its habits : — 
“Diligent search enabled me to find more than twenty nest-founding 
females of regularis. Since these must have been fecundated sometime 
between February and April, 1931, and since in the genus Myrmecia 
as in other Ponerinae the females and workers differ so little in size, 
and especially in the relative volumes of the thorax and gaster, as 
contrasted with the queens and workers of the higher ants, it seemed 
to me improbable that the regularis queen could fast and survive on 
her small amount of fat and wing-musculature for a period as long as 
seven or eight months. That we are not compelled to make such a 
supposition was demonstrated by the following observations. 
“I found that each of the females occupied a large flat cell (Fig. 6) 
varying from 2| to 4 inches in diameter under a large stone or log 
rather deeply embedded in the soil. The lower surface of the stone 
or log formed the roof of the cell ; its earthen floor was quite flat and 
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