Jt'N ANTS. 



Mcl'ook effectively dispelled the notion that the repletes manufac- 

 ture the honev which they contain, a notion started by Wesmael and 

 held by several writer-, by showing how they obtain and store the 

 liquid. .!/. horti-deornin is decidedly nocturnal, unlike the different 

 subspecie- and varieties of mellifjer. which are diurnal. Indeed, the 

 etiolated appearance and pale yellow color of the northern forms of 

 iiic.viciiints at once -ugge>t a fondness for darkness, just as the deeper 

 tints of the typical form of the species suggest diurnal or crepuscular 

 habit-. I hiring the day, therefore, the workers of .17. horti-dcornm 

 are never seen outside of the nest, but frequently a guard of worker- 

 is stationed just within the large opening, apparently for the purpose 

 of preventing other ants, spiders, etc., from entering. McCook found 

 that during July the workers leave the nest in a file at about 7.30 

 P. M. and visit the shin oaks (Onercus nndnlata) which grow abun- 

 dantly along the rocky ridges in the Garden of the Gods and the sur- 

 rounding country. The twigs of these oaks are often covered with 

 small woody galls about the size of a pea and of a more or less conical 

 or spheroidal shape, the work of the Cynipid Holcaspis perniciosus. 

 At night these galls exude minute droplets of a sweet, watery secretion 

 which is eagerly imbibed by the ordinary workers, carried to the nest 

 in their crops and fed to the repletes (Fig. 222). 



Forel, in 1880, showed that the gaster of the replete horti-dconun 

 owes its size and rotundity exclusively to an enormous distension of 

 the crop, or ingluvies and not of the stomach as Leidy (1852) and 

 Blake ( 1873) had supposed, and that all the other structures found in 

 the gaster of the ordinary worker are present in the replete, though 

 they are necessarily flattened against the gastric wall. These observa- 

 tions were confirmed by McCook's careful dissections and figures of 

 the gaster of ordinary workers, semirepletes (" semirotunds " ) and 

 repletes. He inferred that " the process by which the rotundity of 

 the honey-bearers has probably been produced, has its exact counter- 

 part in the ordinary distension of the crop in overfed ants; that, at 

 least the condition of the alimentary canal, in all the castes, is the 

 same, differing only in degree, and therefore, the probability is very 

 great that the honey-bearer is simply a worker with an oi'eryroivn 

 abdomen." He found, moreover, that "a comparison of the workers 

 with the honey-bearer shows that there is absolutely no difference 

 between them except in the distended condition of the abdomen " and 

 he therefore inferred ''that the worker majors, for the most part, and 

 sometimes the minors, are transformed by the gradual distension of 

 the crop, and expansion of the abdomen, in the honey-bearers, and that 

 the latter do not compose a distinct caste. It is probable, however, 



