Book Review: Ants of North America.
Psyche 57(1):31-32, 1950.

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BOOK REVIEW
THE ANTS OF NORTH AMEEICA, by William S. Creighton. Bulle- tin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, vol. 104, pp. 1-585, 57 plates (April, 1950). For the first time in this century, there is available in one volume a comprehensive treatment of all the genera and species of North American (Nearctic) ants. Interest of entomologists in this work will be aroused chiefly by the complete keys and plates, which allow more accurate determination of our ants than has ever before been possible. The major significance of this volume does not rest with this quality, however. Professor Creighton's long-awaited work easily ranks with the two most fundamental and influential previous works in formicid taxonomy, Mayr's "Formicina Austriaca" and Emery's contributions to the "Genera Insectorum." Mayr was the first to recognize and apply generic differences among ants on a log- ical and systematic basis. Emery digested the vast amount of world literature and produced a comprehensive classification, generic key and catalog for the family. Creighton, in a single stroke that cannot be ignored, has applied the modern concepts of population systematics to the entire North American fauna. In its purpose and effect, Dr. Creighton's work is a detailed generic and specific revision of the Nearctic ants. It is bold, sweeping and relentless. The author lucidly exposes the confu- sion that has attended the growth of the taxonomy of our fauna. Familiar but worthless names of some of our commonest forms fall into synonymy by the score. The taxonomic categories are restricted to the species and subspecies (geographical race) below the subgenus, and the concept of variety is rejected as useless and meaningless. The evidence presented for this system is so overwhelming and detailed, in the opinion of this reviewer, that any myrmecologist clinging to the pentanomial or hex- anomial systems will find logical refutation impossible. Al- though systematics based on population concepts has presum- ably not been completely unknown to myrmecologists, the litera- ture of the past ten years abundantly proves that the major principles set forth by Ernst Mayr and others have rarely been applied correctly in specific cases among the ants. Most Pu&e 57:3 1-12 (1950). hup ttpsychu einclub org/S7/57-011.htiiil



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Psyche
[Mar.
inyrme~ographe~s seem to have understood rather vaguely that varieties should not be described, but that subspecies were allow- able ; the essentially geographical nature of the subspecies is not evident at all in the majority of forms placed in that category up to the present.
In the matter of individual case treatments in Creighton's work, it is necessarily true that many of the subspecies are little more than intelligent guesses based on abundant, but still in- sufficient material. During the many months the book remained in the hands of the editor, proofreaders and printers, some of the names carried in it have been synonymized, and several new forms have been described in the mounting North American literature. One could scarcely expect a work of this scope to be in any sense a final treatment of the group. Few entomologists, even including some myrmecologists, realize the extreme confu- sion that has reigned in the taxonomy of our ant fauna; the most experienced entomologists have been unable to name with any confidence many of our commonest species. For this reason, it must be made as emphatic as possible that "The Ants of North America" is not an infallible guide based upon a triumphant cen- tury of myrmecographic endeavor ; rather, it is the exposure of the fundamental taxonomy that may make such a century pos- WILLIA WILLIAM I,. BROWN, JR., Biological Laboratories, Har- vard University.




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