282 MAURICE COLE TANQUARY. 



stances that are converted into food for the young. Although so arduous that few 

 of the many queens of all that celebrate their nuptial flight during a season ever 

 succeed in founding a colony, this method is, nevertheless, the one adopted by the 

 great majority of ants." 



The second method refers to the fungus-raising ants (Attii) and need not be 

 given here. 



"3. The female ant, owing to her small and delicate stature, or delayed fertility, 

 is quite unable to found a colony without the aid of workers of another species. 

 This method, which is resorted to by parasitic species using that term in a very 

 broad sense appears under three different aspects. 



"A. As temporary social parasitism. The female seeks and obtains adoption 

 in a small queenless colony of another species and permits its alien workers to bring 

 up her young. When these have matured, they emancipate themselves and become 

 an independent colony, either by emigration or, more probably, only through the 

 natural death of the host species." 



" B. As permanent social parasitism. The female seeks and obtains adoption 

 jn a colony of some other species and there permanently resides together with her 

 offspring. Examples: Aner gates, Strongylognathus, Proiomognathus, Wheeleria, etc. 



"C. As dulosus, or slavery. The solitary female enters a small colony of 

 another species, kills the workers, and seizes and rears the progeny (larvae and pupas) 

 as a first step towards bringing up her young. The workers produced by 

 the female subsequently make forays on other colonies of the host species and 

 appropriate their offspring. While they use a portion of these as food they permit 

 another portion to develop as 'auxiliaries' or 'slaves' so that the colony preserves 

 its 'mixed' character." 



In the same paper and in others Wheeler has also brought out 

 the fact that parasitic species are sporadic in their occurrence,, 

 that they usually produce a very large number of females which 

 are aberrant in some way, such as being of unusually small size, 

 sometimes smaller than the workers, in being mimetic in colora- 

 tion or behavior, in being covered w T ith fulvous, myrmecophilous 

 hairs, etc. Therefore the possession of the above characteristics 

 to any extent by a species of ant is good grounds for believing 

 that the queens of that species may be parasitic in founding their 

 colonies. 



A paragraph on page 447 of Wheeler's book, "Ants, their 

 Structure, Development and Behavior," gives the reasons for 

 performing adoption experiments with queens of Aphcenogaster 

 tennesseensis. 



"The female of the myrmecine ant Aphcenogaster tennesseensis in being deep 

 red and of very small size, with a glabrous body and huge, flattened, epinotal spines 

 protecting the vulnerable abdominal pedicel, is so unlike the females of any other 

 members of the genus AphcenogasteY that she was originally described by 

 Mayr as the type of a distinct species (.4. levis). These peculiarities suggest 

 temporary parasitism and this is borne out by the observations of Schmitt 



