288 The Red House- Ant. 
metropolis. I suspect it has never been absent from 
London since the period when it was first noticed here, or 
perhaps, rather, when its appearance was first recorded, 
which was in 1828. Some stir was made about it in 1836, 
when the late Dr. Bostock brought the subject before the 
Entomological Society, his house, in Upper Bedford place, 
Russell-square being annoyingly infested by it. So great 
was the inconvenience he suffered from the incursion of 
these little pests, that he was induced to go to considerable 
expense in his endeavour to extirpate them by removing 
the ranges and wainscotings in his kitchens, &c., but, I 
believe without avail. In the discussion that ensued at 
the time in the Society, I was applied to by the President 
for an opinion as to the locality of its probable origin, if 
not indigenous. Being then much engaged upon the Hy- 
menoptera, and not having noticed it, at large, in my ento- 
mological excursions, although I had for some time fre- 
quently observed and admired the pretty little creature 
indulging, in ones and twos, amongst my coffee sugar of a 
morning, I hazarded the opinion that it was an exotic, and 
very likely a native of the West Indies, led to this surmise 
by my own experience. That it is American is confirmed 
by the fact of its abounding in the Brazils, where it is a 
greater pest than with us, existing there in enormous pro- 
fusion everywhere, both in-doors and out of doors. It 
appears to have streamed thence—assuming that that 
country is its metropolis—upwards through the isthmus to 
the United States, reaching as high as Boston, in Massa- 
chusetts, where Thomas Say, the celebrated American en- 
tomologist, was as much annoyed by it as we are; but he 
has suggested a remedy which may help to curb, if not 
completely to check its diffusion. I described it, with other 
small exotic ants, in Charlesworth’s “Magazine of Natural 
History,’ in the year 1838, by the name of Myrmzca 
domestica, and where its description will be found at page 
626. I was not then aware that Say had before described 
itas MWyrmica molesta, in the “ Boston Journal of Natural 
History for 1834,” page 293,—a specific name suggested 
by the inconvenience he had suffered from its intrusion. 
He there tells us that “it is called ‘the little yellow ant, 
and that it is frequently found in houses in great numbers. 
They sometimes eat vegetable food, and some of my 
garden-seeds have severely suffered from their attacks. 
They also devour grease, olive-oil, &c. Their sting is like 
the puncture of a very fine needle. I placed a piece of 
ee aaa. == = 
