See letter to Frederick Smith, 12 March 1878.

At the 3 April 1878 meeting of the Entomological Society of London, Smith exhibited specimens of harvesting ant that had been sent to CD from Florida by Mary Treat. One phial contained specimens ‘gradating from large soldiers to small workers, all having acutely dentate mandibles’; in a second phial, the ants’ mandibles had ‘rounded teeth’, while in a third phial, the teeth ‘were obsolete’ (see Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1878): xii). See also Treat 1879, pp. 74 and 88, where Treat describes three types of neuter ants (major and minor workers and soldiers) each with differently shaped mandibles. The ant was later identified as Pogonomyrmex crudelis (a synonym of P. badius, the Florida harvester ant; see Treat 1879, p. 76).