EXPERIMENTS ON THE ADOPTION OF LASIUS, FOR- 

 MICA AND POLYERGUS QUEENS BY COLONIES 

 OF ALIEN SPECIES. 1 



MAURICE COLE TANQUARY. 



The experiments recorded in this paper were performed during 

 the past summer in the laboratory of the Bussey Institution, 

 Harvard University, at the suggestion and under the direction 

 of Professor W. M. Wheeler. At the beginning of this particular 

 series of experiments I had in mind only two species with which 

 I intended to work, namely, Aphccnogaster tennesseensis and 

 Aphcenogaster fulva with its subspecies aquia and variety picea, 

 but a number of field excursions taken during July and August 

 brought to hand several other species which served as such ex- 

 cellent material for similar experiments that it was decided to 

 include them also. 



OBJECT OF EXPERIMENTS. 



The object of these experiments was to determine whether 

 the queens of certain species of ants are parasitic upon certain 

 other species in founding their colonies. The various methods 

 employed by queen ants in founding their colonies are stated in 

 Wheeler's "The Founding of Colonies by Queen Ants," and since 

 the following experiments have a direct bearing upon that ques- 

 tion, and in fact form a continuation of exactly the same sort 

 of work, I think I can do no better in the beginning than quote 

 a few paragraphs from that paper. 



"Female, or queen, ants in founding their colonies resort to one of three 

 methods, which may be known as the usual or typical, the redundant, and the 

 defective. . . . 



i. "The female ant is able by herself alone to start her colony; that is, under 

 favorable circumstances she can produce and bring to maturity the first brood 

 of workers and thus insure the further growth and development of the colony. 

 She is capable of passing many months without nourishment even while she is 

 feeding her off-spring. Her voluminous fat-body, built up during her larval life 

 in the maternal nest, together with her degenerating wing-muscles, furnish the sub- 



1 Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, 

 Harvard University, No. 29. 



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