THE DI-rELOPMIiXT OF ANTS. 85 



inc.v barbatns, can survive a flood of several clays' duration. She did 

 not test the resistance of ants to drought, but that this is considerable 

 in many species is shown by the rich ant-fauna of many deserts like 

 the Sahara and the deserts of the Southwestern States and northern 

 Mexico. Miss Fielde also found that ants exhibit considerable resist- 

 ance to the action of very violent poisons such as corrosive subli- 

 mate, potassium cyanide and carbolic acid. Their tenacity is best 

 shown, however, in the number of days they are able to live after 

 severe maiming, like decapitation. Janet (1898(7, p. 130) kept a be- 

 headed F. rufa alive for 19 days, and Miss Fielde kept a beheaded 

 worker of C. pcunsylranicus alive for 41 days. And this ant walked 

 about to within two days of its death ! In their experiments Janet and 

 Miss Fielde found that the males are least, the females most resistant 

 to adverse conditions, and that the vitality of the workers varies 

 directly as their size. 



These facts, with others to be produced in the sequel, show that 

 ants are made of remarkably tenacious protoplasm. Chained to the 

 earth as they are, they have come to adapt themselves perfectly to its 

 great thermal vicissitudes, its droughts and floods, and its precarious 

 and fluctuating food-supply. 



