4- ANTS. 



long deferent duct (I'd). Kadi duct is enlarged near its posterior end 

 to form a thick-walled seminal vesicle (rs). The two deferent ducts 

 unite to form a slender ejaculatory duct (dc) which opens on the ninth 

 abdominal (sixth gastric) .segment at the base of the paired penis (/>). 



The poison apparatus belongs morphologically to the sting, and is, 

 therefore, absent in all male ants. It appears under two different forms, 

 which Forel ( 1878) distinguishes as the pulvinate and the bourreleted. 

 The former is confined to the ants of the subfamily Camponotime 

 (I'onnica, Lasins, Cainpoiiotits, etc.), a group in which the parts of 

 the sting have all but completely disappeared, the latter occurs in all the 

 other subfamilies, which have the sting either highly developed or very 

 small. In I'onnica the poison apparatus consists of a large, elongated, 

 thin-walled but muscular sac or vesicle and a glandular portion ( Fig. 20 ) . 

 The former opens by means of a rather large orifice between the scarcely 

 recognizable sclerites of the highly vestigial sting. To the inside of 

 the dorsal wall of this vesicle is applied an elongate, elliptical, flattened 

 cushion made up of a delicate, much convoluted and somewhat branched 

 glandular tubule, which is fully 20 cm. in length when uncoiled. One 

 end of this tubule opens into the vesicle at the middle of the ventral 

 surface of the cushion, the other leaves the posterior end of the vesicle 

 in the mid-dorsal line and bifurcates to form a pair of glandular tubules 

 which terminate blindly and lie freely in the body cavity. The walls of 

 these tubules consist of polygonal cells, each of which has a minute 

 duct starting within its cytoplasm and opening into the axial duct, or 

 lumen of the tubules. 



The second, or bourreleted type of poison apparatus is of a much 

 simpler structure. It, too, consists of a vesicular and a glandular por- 

 tion, with the former opening into the groove of the sting. The vesicle 

 is smaller, however, and more pyriform or globular, and its duct to the 

 exterior is more slender than in the pulvinate type. The glands are a 

 pair of tubules which unite and enter, and in Myrmica (Fig. 21, B) 

 and many other genera, form an unpaired and somewhat convoluted 

 tubule within the vesicular cavity. This tubule is enlarged or button- 

 shaped at the free end where its opening is situated. In Bothriomyr- 

 uie.r (Fig. 21, A) Forel found the unpaired tubule reduced to a small 

 sub-globular structure with the opening on its summit. As the bour- 

 releted gland is usually associated with a well-developed sting, except 

 in the Dolichoderinae, and, moreover, closely resembles the poison 

 gland of the wasp and bee, it must be regarded as the more primitive 

 of the two types. The pulvinate gland secretes a more copious amount 

 of liquid, which is stored in the vesicle whence it can be either ejected 

 by some ants ( Formica rnfa and its allies) in a fine spray to a distance 



