those of the preceding work may be regarded as so many drawers in our Cabinet of Habits, and though, as we open drawer after drawer, many gaps and blank spaces remind us how much remains to be done in order to complete the collection, yet the interest and suggestiveness of the specimen-facts already secured, should encourage and direct us onwards. There have not been wanting instances in which my readers have associated themselves with me in the way indicated, and it is with pleasure, when reviewing the entire work, that I recall how many of its most interesting features are due to the researches and assistance of friends,[1] and commemorate at once their discoveries and unfailing kindness. I had certainly expected that before this time some new species of harvesting ants would have been discovered, either on the Riviera, where attention has been especially called to the subject, or in other parts of Europe, where dissimilar conditions might have been expected to be associated with a different fauna; but this has hitherto not been the case.
One might naturally suppose that if harvesting ants were discovered in localities very widely distant from each other, they would prove to belong to different species, but thus far, both in Europe and Northern Africa, it is the same two well-known species of Atta barbara and A. structor that constantly reappear.
For instance, I have recently learned that harvesting ants are found at Cadenabbia on the lake of
- ↑ To all who have rendered me this valuable help I tender my cordial thanks. I am under very special obligations to Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, for descriptions of spiders, and to Mr. F. Smith for the names of the Ants; assistance which I should have found it almost impossible to dispense with or to replace.
