THE POXERIXE AXTS. 



239 



The insect, after periods of struggling, alternating with periods of 

 rest, succeeds in getting first one antenna, then the other, and then the 

 fore legs through the orifice, and finally, with considerable effort, creeps 

 out. After making this observation on isolated cocoons I had an 

 opportunity of making it in the artificial nests. In these the hatching- 

 cocoons were often carried about and placed on or under the stack of 

 other cocoons, while the callows, struggling to emerge, seemed to hold 

 out their antennae and fore legs in a supplicating attitude to the com- 

 pletely indifferent workers. In a few instances the callows died while 

 halfway out of the cocoons and were carried to the refuse-heap in this 

 condition. Occasionally, when the young callows had emerged with 

 their hind legs still enswathed and encumbered by the white pupal skin, 

 the workers would pull this away. They also occasionally licked anil 



FIG. 137. Male, worker and gynaecoid female of Lobopelta elongata X 2. (Original.) 



fondled the newcomers as if their bodies were covered with some 

 pleasant secretion, but beyond these acts their helpfulness did not 

 extend. The same workers, however, frequently opened cocoons 

 and extracted dead, immature pupae, cut them up, and then placed them 

 on the refuse heap. 



The newly hatched Stiginatounna, as w r e should naturally expect 

 from the above observations, is not as feeble as the callows of the more 

 specialized ants. The males and females issue with their wings fully 

 expanded ; the former have their bodies completely pigmented and are 

 able to run about briskly; the latter, as well as the worker callows, 



