33 



o 



ANTS. 



describes the behavior of the young queen in greater detail and is able 

 to trace the development of the colony up to the hatching of the first 

 brood of workers. I le finds that the female expels the pellet from her 

 hticcal pocket the day following the nuptial flight, it is a little mass 

 .5 mm. in diameter, white, yellowish or even black in color, and con- 

 sists of fungu> hyph;e imbedded in the substances collected from the 

 ant's body by means of the strigils on her fore feet and thence depos- 

 ited in her mouth. l>y the third day six to ten eggs are laid. At this 

 time also the pellet begins to send out hyphse in all directions. The 

 female separates the pellet into two masses on this or the following 

 day. For the next ten to twelve days she lays about ten eggs daily, 

 while the fungus tiocculi grow larger and more numerous. At first 



FTG. 198. Nest craters of Mccllcn'its vcrsicoltu- in a sandy 



Arizona. (Original.) 



the deserts of 



the eggs and flocculi are kept separate, but they are soon brought 

 together and at least a part of the eggs are placed on or among the 

 flocculi. Eight or ten days later the flocculi have become so numerous 

 that they form when brought together a round or elliptical disk about 

 T cm. in diameter. This disk is converted into a dish-shaped mass with 

 central depression in which the eggs and larvae are thenceforth kept. 

 The first larva? appear about fourteen to sixteen days after the Atta 



