No. 2.] HABITS OF P ONER A AND STIGMATOMMA. 49 



workers, and forty-four cocoons. A few nests examined some- 

 what later in the month contained a greater number of individ- 

 uals, so that fifty to sixty is perhaps not too great an estimate 

 for a large colony by the first week in September. 



The winged males undoubtedly leave the nests like the males 

 of other ants, as I have taken them in the sweep-net in the 

 grass while collecting small Diptera. I have also seen the 

 males copulating with the newly hatched females in the same 

 nest. The small size of the nests in the early summer would 

 seem to indicate that the large number of workers in the late 

 summer and early autumn must split up into several detach- 

 ments, each with a young queen, and migrate to different 

 localities. My reasons for making this statement, apart from 

 the above-mentioned mating of the young queens within the 

 parental nest, are largely of a negative character, but they may 

 be given for what they are worth. First, I have observed no 

 tendency in the young queens, while they possess wings, to 

 leave the nests like the males ; second, the wings are often 

 lost very soon after hatching, sometimes before the queen has 

 acquired her deep adult coloration ; and, third, I have never 

 found a solitary queen in the act of founding a nest, either 

 of this or of any other of the five species of Ponerinae I have 

 studied, although I have frequently seen the young fertilized 

 queens of Camponotus, Formica, Lasius, Tapinoma, Cremato- 

 gaster, Stenamma, Myrmica, and Pogonomyrmcx starting their 

 colonies. The fact that the colonies seem to be annual instead 

 of perennial growths, as among other ants like those above 

 mentioned, is of considerable interest. It points to very primi- 

 tive conditions in the Ponerinae, especially as the same is also 

 true of tropical forms like PacJiycondyla and Leptogenys, which 

 can hardly be destroyed by severe winters. Thus what was 

 at one time erroneously supposed to be true of the more spe- 

 cialized ants, viz., the founding of a colony by a young female 

 leaving the parental nest like the young queen of the hive bee, 

 accompanied by a number of workers, may prove to be the 

 normal method of nest formation with the Ponerinae. If this 

 supposition is correct, there must be considerable inbreeding 

 in the colonies of these ants, as the females would be regularly 



