306 MAURICE COLE TANQUARY. 



The four queens of F. sanguined var. mbicunda which I tried 

 with small colonies of F. subsericea were not in very good condi- 

 tion as I had kept them too long in confinement without food and 

 with one exception were killed. This one, however, behaved as 

 did those in the experiments described by Wheeler in 1906. She 

 killed four of the eight workers in the nest and after some time 

 took charge of the pupae. The other four workers remained hos- 

 tile for about two weeks, after which they adopted her and helped 

 take care of the brood. 



The one colony of incerta w r ith which I tried a queen of F. con- 

 socians contained the mother queen, about three dozen workers 

 and several cocoons. I placed the consocians queen in with them 

 on August 5 at 4.30 P.M. The introduction of the queen caused 

 very little disturbance. The workers she met nabbed at her 

 and pulled her legs and antennae a little but not at all violently. 

 Within an hour after being placed in she was fully adopted and 

 was going about feeding the workers by regurgitation. The 

 two queens, incerta and consocians, lived peacefully side by side. 

 I still have the colony in the laboratory, September 16, and the 

 yellow consocians queen seems to be perfectly happy with her 

 strange nest mates. While on a field trip with Professor Wheeler 

 near Colebrook, Conn., July 30 and 31, he found two mixed 

 colonies of incerta and consocians and has given me the following 

 notes which he made of them: 



"Colebrook, Conn., July 30, 1910. 



"No. i. A mixed colony (in the second year) consisting of a 

 consocians female and about 100 workers with brood, and a 

 somewhat smaller number of workers of incerta. This was under 

 a stone on Mt. Pisgah. 



"No. 2. Colebrook, Conn., July 31, 1910. At Beech Hill 

 near the Massachusetts boundary north of Colebrook I found a 

 large and flourishing colony of F. incerta containing fully 200 

 workers and much brood, containing a single consocians queen 

 that must have been very recently adopted. This is the largest 

 inserta colony in which I have found a consocians queen." 



The finding of mixed colonies of these two species, incerta 

 and consocians, near Colebrook, Conn., a number of years ago 

 and subsequent extensive field observations and experiments 



