304 A. M. FIELDE. 



to live without food, enhances their value in slavery, where other 

 species so often hold them. 



Of two Camponotus castaneus americamts workers, * measuring 

 thirteen millimeters, one lived fifty-four days, and the other lived 

 more than a hundred days. 



Two winged queens of Camponotus americanus, eighteen milli- 

 meters in length, and at least three months old, were established 



s 



in a separate cell on July 13. One of them dropped her wings 

 on July 31, while the other continued to wear her wings. No 

 eggs were laid by either and both were alive on October 18. 



ELIMINATION OF INEDIBLE SUBSTANCES. 



The skill with which ants eliminate from their food supply such 

 inedible substances as may be commingled therewith, was shown 

 in the action of Stenamma fuhmm piceum toward certain dye-stuffs 

 that I mixed with their nutriment. Into each of four similar 

 Fielde nests, C, I, T, and M, I put one queen and fifty workers, 

 with a few half-grown larvae. During three months no food was 

 given to these ants other than what is hereinafter mentioned. 

 The dye-stuffs were first triturated, molasses was added to make 

 with them a thick paste, and a portion of the paste was then 

 placed in the food-room of the nest. For the C nest, cochineal 

 was commingled with the molasses ; for the I nest, indigo ; and 

 for the T nest, tumeric ; while for the M nest, molasses alone was 

 provided. During the three months hardly any ants died in either 

 nest. There was no evidence that any larva was devoured ; and 

 as the introduced larvae appeared in due time in active life, they 

 must have been nourished solely upon regurgitated food. In 

 only one of the nests were any eggs seen, their absence probably 

 being due to deprivation of insect food. 



In all of the nests the finely pulverized inedible substances 

 mixed with the molasses were separated in the mouths of the 

 ants from the nutrient fluid, and were cast out in minute pellets, 

 forming a characteristically colored heap in a corner of each nest, 

 C, I, and T. In the M nest, a smaller pile of brown pellets indi- 

 cated that non-nutritious particles had been rejected from the 

 unmixed molasses. 



1 These ants were kindly identified for me by Dr. W. M. Wheeler. 



