MAURICE COLE TANQUARY. 



B. 



Contained eight workers and a number of pupae. I placed in a queen August 

 29, which lived until September 4. 



B. 246. 



Contained seven workers and a number of pupae. I placed in a queen August 30 

 and it lived until September 4. 



One other experiment with a queen of Aphcenogaster tennessen- 

 sis consisted in placing a dealated queen in a Petri dish with 

 about thirty pupae of A. aqiiia. The pupae of this species, as 

 with other species of myrmicine ants, are naked and do not 

 require the assistance of workers in hatching. They were col- 

 lected and placed in a Petri dish with the queen July 23. The 

 queen paid no attention to them whatever. In a few days the 

 first callows began to hatch and busied themselves taking care of 

 the remaining pupae. The queen at first paid no more attention to 

 the callows than she had to the pupae and in fact stayed in another 

 part of the nest most of the time. After about a half a dozen 

 had hatched, however, she began to stay with them more of the 

 time. The callows were not hostile to her but readily adopted her 

 as their queen. This, however, is what was to be expected because 

 of the discovery made by Miss Fielde and recorded in her paper 

 "Artificial Mixed Nests of Ants." She says: "If one or more 

 individuals of each species that is to be represented in the future 

 mixed nest be sequestered within twelve hours after hatching and 

 each ant so sequestered touch all the others with its antennae 

 during the ensuing days, these ants will live amicably together 

 thereafter although they be of different colonies, varieties, species, 

 genera or subfamilies." At the present time, September 10, 

 all the pupae have hatched and have become adult workers, 

 about thirty in all, and are clustered about the tennesseensis 

 queen exactly as though she were their own. 



FORMICA OBSCURIVENTRIS. 



This subspecies of rufa occurs throughout the northern states 

 east of the Mississippi River. It is fairly common in eastern 

 Massachusetts and has been taken in Illinois. The queens are 

 large, about the size of those of F. sanguined var. rubicunda, 

 and have shiny, jet-black abdomens with very little, almost no 

 pubescence. The thorax and head are a darker red than in F. 

 sanguined rubicunda. The workers vary greatly in size. 



