No. I.] A STUDY OF SOME TEXAN PONERINAK. 25 



May 13. This evening several house-flies, placed in the 

 Janet nest of O. liacmatodes, were at once shorn of their legs, 

 then decapitated, and finally their thoraces and abdomens were 

 cut into smaller pieces and distributed among the larvae. One 

 was given a fly's head, which it kept twirling around in a comi- 

 cal manner, while it devoured the brain through the small 

 cervical orifice. Another was given a piece of a thorax with 

 one of the wings still attached, another a piece of an abdomen, 

 still another, a leg with a mass of muscle at its coxal end, etc. 



May 16. This evening a small homopterous insect was 

 placed in the Odontomachus nest. One of the ants (A) 

 snapped at it, disabled it, and then left it. A few moments 

 later it was picked up by another ant (B) and carried into the 

 chamber containing the larvae and pupae. Thereupon a third 

 ant (C) took hold of it and began tugging at it with B till it 

 was torn open, but not into pieces. B then placed it on the 

 flat ventral surface of a medium-sized larva, which began feed- 

 ing at once, moving the homopteron around with its jaws. 

 After four minutes had elapsed, another ant (D) that had been 

 standing near by, apparently much interested in the feeding, 

 suddenly tore the morsel away and placed it on a small larva. 

 This larva was permitted to feed ten minutes, closely watched 

 during all this time by ant D and another (E) which had 

 come up in the mean time. Then ant D tried to tear the 

 morsel away from the small larva, but apparently unable to do 

 so, it took up the larva with the morsel and dumped them both 

 on the ventral surface of a large larva. This creature seized 

 the homopteron and forced the small larva to release its hold 

 and to drop to the ground. The large larva fed for fully 

 twenty minutes, closely watched by ant D and two others 

 (E and F). All of these ants tried at different times to 

 wrench the morsel away from the larva, but failed. Suddenly 

 a small ant (G) rushed up, tore it away, and ran off with it. 

 By this time very little was left of the homopteron and I lost 

 track of it. 



May 23. A few crumbs of cake, moistened with water, were 

 placed in the Odontomachus nest at 11.7 P.M. A worker soon 

 carried one of the crumbs into the breeding chamber and gave 



