Russian Scientific Works

Abstract

THE Imperial University of Kazan, with its society of naturalists, is noted for excellent worin many departments, and we are greatly impressed with the magnitude of Mr. M. Ruszky's volume “The Ants of Russia” (Formicariae Imperii), of which the first part lies before us. It consist of 800 pages, with 176 sketches, comprising introduction, bibliography, systematic examination of Russian ants, list of collectors to whom the author is indebted, and indexes. Mr. Ruszky began the study of Russian myrmecological fauna in 1892, when he undertook a zoological excursion in the Kazan and Simbirsk governments on behalf of the Society of Naturalists. He was induced to take up this investigation partly because Russian ants had been very little studied, and partly for the collection of materials for the solution of biological and zoo-geographical questions. This work is to be understood as a preliminary array of results, being an attempt at a description of Russian ants in systematic geographical and biological respects. The author anticipates criticism for omission of questions of internal morphology and embryology, and observes that such exhaustive treatment of the Formicidæ by a single investigator would occupy, not one, but many decades. In the important bibliography of writings on ants, occupying with addenda about seventy pages, very few works are devoted to Russia, chief among the number being twelve by the author. Mr. Ruszky estimates the approximate total of species and subspecies known at the time of writing at 3500, and groups Russian ants under the subfamilies Camponotinæ, Dolichoderinæ, Myrmecinæ, and Fonerinæ. Representatives of Dorylinæ, principally found in the tropics, have not been seen in Russia, though one species (Dorylus juvenculus) is European, being found in southern Italy, Sicily, &c. After some useful preliminary notes and tables of species of Russian ants, the author proceeds to detailed descriptions of smaller groups. In all, 258 forms are described (155 species and races, 103 varieties), of which sixty are new and treated for the first time (subfamilies, Camponotinæ, 109; Dolichoderinæ, 7; Myrmecinæ, 138; and Ponerinæ, 4). The regions richest in myrmecological fauna are the Caucasus, with 130 forms; Russian Central Asia, about 112; European Russia, 92; Siberia, 71; Crimea, 43; and Finland, 32. All these figures are approximate, and it is probable that since this work appeared more results have been recorded. This first part gives geographical distribution, locality, and biological information, and in the second Mr. Ruszky proposes to deal with this fauna from the bio-geographical paint of view.