No. 2.] HABITS OF PONERA AND STIC, MA I'OMMA. 63 



about to emerge. In the latter case the opening, which is 

 produced by the huge mandibles, has the form of a transverse 

 slit, extending halfway round the cocoon. The small, sharp 

 mandibles of the male, however, gnaw a hole with irregular 

 edges and of much smaller size. The insect, after periods of 

 struggling, alternating with periods of rest, succeeds in getting 

 first one antenna, then the other, and then the fore legs through 

 the orifice, and finally, with considerable effort, creeps out. 

 After making this observation on isolated cocoons I had an 



o 



opportunity of making it in the artificial nests. In these the 

 hatching cocoons were often carried about and placed on or 

 under the stack of other cocoons, while the callows, struggling 

 to emerge, seemed to hold out their antennae and fore legs in 

 a supplicating attitude to the completely indifferent workers. 

 In a few instances the callows died while halfway out of the 

 cocoons and were carried to the refuse heap in this condition. 

 Occasionally, when the young callows had emerged with their 

 hind legs still enswathed and encumbered by the white pupal 

 skin, the workers would pull this away. They also occasion- 

 ally licked and fondled the newcomers, as if their bodies were 

 covered with some pleasant secretion, but beyond these acts 

 their helpfulness did not extend. These same workers, how- 

 ever, frequently opened cocoons and extracted dead immature 

 pupae, cut them up, and then placed them on the refuse heap. 

 This act shows that the statements concerning Leptogenys in 

 my former paper 1 may require emendation. 



The newly hatched Stigniatomma, as we should naturally 

 expect from the above observations, is not as feeble as the 

 callows of the more specialized ants. The males and females 

 issue with their wings fully expanded; the former have their 

 bodies completely pigmented and are able to run about briskly; 

 the latter, as well as the worker callows, although of a rich 

 yellowish-red, a color which they retain for several days, are 

 nevertheless soon able to run about and to join in the labors 

 of the colony. The queens show no tendency to leave the 

 nest and usually lose their wings (after copulation ?) while still 

 in the red callow condition. 



1 Loc. cit., pp. 29, 30. 



