A \'TS. 



\\orkers and very la/}', cowardly and incompetent ' frustrate exist- 

 ences," as Wasmann appropriately calls them. Usually they make 

 u l' 5-7 P er cent., more rarely as much as 20 per cent., of the personnel 

 of sain/nincii colonies infested with Loincchusa. In one colony of 

 inccrta, which I found in Connecticut, nearly 80 per cent, of the indi- 

 viduals were pseudogynes. Wasmann accounts for the development 

 of these singular beings on the assumption that the ants of colonies, 

 whose larval broods are being devoured by the Lomechusa larvse, 

 try to transmute into workers some of the larvae which have already 

 developed somewhat along the path terminating in the queen phase. 

 These efforts result in the production of forms that belong to 

 neither caste, that is, " outcasts " or pariahs. Wasmann has also' 



FIG. 244. Lasius mi.rtiis worker carrying three Antennophorus pubescent in their 

 normal positions. (Janet.) A, Ventral, B, dorsal, C. lateral view. 



suggested what seems to me the more probable explanation that 

 the pseudogynes may arise without any effort at transmutation but 

 from female larvae that have been merely neglected and left unfed 

 after they have passed the stage at which such treatment would 

 lead to the formation of workers. Of the two hypotheses the latter 

 is simpler and accords better with the other known peculiarities of 

 ant development. That the pseudogynes are not the result of patho- 

 genic conditions in the egg or mother queen has been proved experi- 

 mentally by Viehmeyer (1904), who removed an aged sanguined queen 

 from a colony that for years had been producing pseudogynes, owing 



