No. 2.] HABITS OF PONERA AND STIGMATOMMA. 51 



corn bread, or even on " Boston brown bread." They do not 

 appear to share the fondness of ants in general for sugar dis- 

 solved in water. When kept for a time without food they eat 

 their dead companions or their own eggs, larvae, and pupae. 



The workers of Poncra are never seen feeding one another 

 with regurgitated food, like the different species of Formica, 

 Lasius, and Rlyrmica. Even the queen is obliged to feed her- 

 self. The workers bestow on her no special attentions, nor 

 does she enjoy any of the privileges of the queens of the 

 above-mentioned specialized genera, after they have once 

 established their colonies. Like any one of the workers, she 

 takes part in digging the galleries, wanders out in search of 

 food, assists in transporting and cleansing the eggs, larvae, and 

 cocoons, and in feeding the larvae. Although not expressly 

 stated in my former paper, this is also true of the ergatoid 

 females of Leptogenys and Pachycondyla. This would seem to 

 indicate a decidedly primitive condition, since the activities of the 

 females of the Ponerinae never pass beyond the stage exhibited 

 by the females of the more specialized ants only while they 

 are raising their first batch of workers. 1 



In the scrupulous care of their nests, colonies of P. coarctata 

 closely resemble the more specialized ants. They bury their 

 food or any liquid or strong-smelling substance in their environ- 

 ment, and all refuse -- dead ants, dead pupae, empty cocoons, 

 etc. is deposited in one corner of the nest. 



The eggs of P. coarctata are oblong, like those of the other 

 Ponerinae I have described (Pachycondyla, Leptogenys}, and of 

 very large size fully .6 mm. long, or nearly as large as the 

 thorax of the insect that lays them. The number produced 

 at one time is, however, relatively small. Only three were 

 deposited by one female in my nests July 20. As the 

 larvae found in nests in early July are of very different sizes, 

 we must assume that the queen lays a few eggs at a time, 



1 In this connection it is interesting to note that, as Janet has shown (' Nids 

 artificiels en platre. Fondation d'une colonie par une femelle isolee," Bull. Soc. 

 Zoi'/., tome xviii, p. 168, France, 1893), the female of the more specialized ants, 

 when separated from all her workers, may return to and repeat all the activities 

 which she displayed while founding her first colony. 



