134 WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 



from some recent European investigations. Forel 1 long ago 

 showed that this ant is unique among the old world Lasii umd 

 the new world species may be included in this statement) in its 

 odor, the great size of its colonies, its habit of foraging in long 

 files in the broad day-light and in constructing carton nests in 

 old tree-trunks. \Yasmann 2 has recently called attention to its 

 ability to form new colonies by sending off detachments of queens 

 and workers after the manner of Formica rufa. Like rufa it also 

 possesses another method of colony formation, namely, through 

 temporary parasitism. Unlike the queens of the common Lasius 

 niger, the queen of fuliginosus, after fecundation on her marriage 

 flight and on returning to the earth, is unable to start a colony 

 unaided, and if prevented from rejoining the maternal colony 

 or a detachment of workers of her own species, has to seek out a 

 colony of L. umbratus and have her young brought up by the 

 workers of this ant. The umbratus queen must be killed either 

 by her own workers or by the intrusive fuliginosus queen, so that 

 the host species is destined eventually to die off and leave a pure 

 and thriving fuliginosus colony. That this method of colony 

 formation is actually adopted by fuliginosus queens is clearly 

 indicated by the following observations which have been slowly 

 accumulating during the past few years: In 1908 de Lannoy 

 stated that in 1904 he found at Knoche-sur-Mer in Belgium a few 

 workers of L. mixtus (a subspecies of umbratus} living in a large 

 colony of fuliginosus, and that in 1906 he found several similar 

 colonies. Emery 4 and Forel 5 interpreted these observations to 

 mean that the queen fuliginosus founds her colony with the aid of 

 umbratus workers, in a manner analogous to that employed by the 

 North American and European Formica of the rnfa, exsecta and 



'"Les Fourmis de la Suisse," Nouv. Mhn. Soc. Helv. Sc. Nat. Zurich. XXVI., 

 1874, pp. J-447. 2 pis. 



"'Ueber gemischte Kolonien von Lasius-Arten," Zoo/. Anzeig., XXXV., 1909, 

 pp. 129-141. 



'"Notes sur le Lasius niger et le Lasius fuliginosus," Ann. Soc. Enl. Belg., LI I., 

 1908. pp. 47-53- 



4 "Remarc|ues sur les observations de M. de Lannoy touchant 1'existcnce de 

 L. mixtus dans les fourmilieres de L. fuliginosus," Ann. Soc. Eiit. Bclg., LIL, 1908, 

 pp. 182, 183. 



6 "Lettre a la Societc Entomologique de Belgique," Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg., LIL, 

 1908. pp. 180, 181. 



