HORN EXPEDITION—HONEY ANTS. 
387 
During and subsequent to the visit of the Horn Expedition to Central 
Australia Professor Baldwin Hpencer obtained, mainly through the kindness of 
Mr. E. C. Cowle, of lllainurta, a very fine series of this species, together with 
other honey ants, upon which he has sent me the following notes, together with 
the specimens to describe. 
Professor Spencer says:—“The black honey ixwt (^Ca/nponotiis inflaius, Lub.) 
is called “ Yarumpa ” by the natives, by whom it is esteemed a great luxury ; it 
is, par excellence^ the honey ant of the central country, and ranges across to the 
Murchison in Western Australia. We found them plentiful in certain districts 
on the hard sandy plains, and also often very abundant in patches among the 
Mulga scrub. The ground all round Ayers Bock, to the south of Lake Amadeus, 
was strewn with heaps of sand where the natives had been digging them out. 
They construct no mound over their nests ; the entrance, which is an inch in 
length by a quarter of an inch in width, leads down into a vertical shaft or 
burrow from five to six feet in depth. About a foot below the sui-face horizontal 
passages about a foot in length lead off from the main shaft, at the end of which 
were three or four of the honey ants, while the bottom of the main shaft, which is 
excavated into a larger cavity, contained a considerable number. The ‘honey ants’ 
are quite incapable of movement and must be fed by the workers. Unlike all the 
other ants noticed in this country, these did not appear to collect twigs, leaves or 
grass to carry into their burrows.” 
The red honey ant {^Canipanotus coivlel, n. sp.) is a much rarer species. 
Professor Spencer says :—•“ I only came across a single nest of the golden yellow 
species, which was a small one, consisting of branching passages close to the 
surface, under a little block of quartzite in one of the gorges amongst the 
McDonnell Ranges. In this nest the honey ants, though considerably swollen 
out, seemed to be able to move about slowly. Perhaps it was a young colony and 
they were not fully developed.” The natives call this species “ Ittootoonee,” and 
we are indebted to the energy of Mr. Cowle who afterward secured a very fine 
series of this honey ant in all stages of its growth. 
Camponotus cowlei, n. sp. Figs. 1, 2, 3, I, 5. 
d Black, wings fuscus, cinereous hairs about the jaws and head, legs and 
antennae dark chocolatedjrowm ; length four lines. Head longer than broad, ocelli 
small, close together, forming a triangle on summit behind the eyes, the latter 
circular, brown and not very prominent; antenme inserted below the eyes in deep 
clefts, scape long and slender, the flagellum about half as hmg again as the scape, 
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