ARTIFICIAL MIXED NESTS OF ANTS. 321 



umbratus, seven workers of Lasins latipes, five workers of Cam- 

 ponotus pennsyhanicus, four workers of Formica sanguine a, four 

 workers of Formica subsericea, and three workers of Stigmatoinma 

 pallipes, and when these ants had recovered from shock-effect, 

 with healed wounds, I placed them all in an artificial nest, roomy 

 for their number, having thirty-two square inches of floor-space. 

 Duels were constant, and in two hours there were but twenty- 

 three survivors from the forty-seven ants. Several of the sur- 

 vivors were disabled. 



I then formed a new group, with other ants, having the four 

 proximal segments of the funicle intact. This group included rep- 

 resentatives of the Camponotines, Camponotus Pennsylvania is and 

 Formica sanguinca ; of the Myrmicines, Stenamma fnlvnm and 

 Cremastogaster lincolata, and of the Ponerines, Stigmatoinma pal- 

 lipes. These lived peacefully together many days, in one of my 

 small Petri cells, and ants of different subfamilies often huddled 

 together. In this cell I saw a queen of the Stenammas lapping 

 regurgitated food from the mouth of a Camponotus worker. 



In another mixed group, made up of ants retaining from three 

 to six segments of a funicle, I removed and examined every 

 ant that attacked one of another species, and found that all such 

 ants retained more than four segments of the funicle. 



We may, then, secure peaceful mixed nests by depriving the 

 inmates of certain segments of the antennae. 



I have lately created many mixed nests by another method, 

 that of educating the ants in ant-odors unlike their own. 1 If one 

 or more individuals, of each species that is to be represented in 

 the future mixed nest, be sequestered within twelve hours after 

 hatching, and each ant so sequestered touch all the others with 

 its antennae during the three ensuing days, these ants will live 

 amicably together thereafter, although they be of different colo- 

 nies, varieties, species, genera or subfamilies. For sequestering 

 the ants, I used artificial nests, made in watch-glasses so small 

 that the natural movement of the newly-hatched ants would 

 brine each of them into contact with all the others. In no case 



o 



did the callows quarrel, and those of most diverse lineage some- 



1 The experiments were made at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, 

 Mass., in July, August and September, 1903. 



