43 s ANTS. 



years to perceive that a mixed colony or a simple colony, for that 

 matter, can only be understood by tracing its development and history 

 its ontogeny, as the embryologist would say. And as all ant-colonies 

 are started by queens, it would seem to be most natural to approach 

 the subject by studying the behavior of these insects. But all problems 

 appear to be simple after they have ceased to be problems. I described 

 in Chapter XI the various methods of colony formation exhibited by 

 ants in general. Before considering the mixed colonies it will be nec- 

 essary not only to refer the reader to that description but also to present 

 the subject from a somewhat different point of view. 



In the great majority of ant species the colony arises and develops 

 in the following manner: The single female, or queen, after mating 

 during her marriage flight, descends to the earth, divests herself of her 

 wings, digs a small cell in the soil, or enters some preformed cavity 

 under a stone or in the tissues of a plant, lays a number of eggs, feeds 

 the resulting larvae with her salivary secretion, and guards and nurses 

 them till they mature and constitute a brood of diminutive workers. 

 These now proceed to enlarge the nest, to forage for food, both for 

 themselves and their mother, and to care for the succeeding broods of 

 young. The queen thenceforth gives herself up exclusively to feeding 

 from the tongues of her offspring and to laying eggs. The colony grows 

 apace, the workers increasing in number, size and polymorphism with 

 successive broods. Eventually males and virgin queens are produced, 

 though often only after the expiration of several years, when the colony 

 may be said to have completed its ontogenetic development. 



It will be seen from the foregoing summary that the mother 

 queen lapses from the position of an independent organism with 

 remarkable initiative to that of a parasite dependent on her own 

 offspring. The latter stage in her life is of much longer duration than 

 the former. This singular ontogenetic change in the instincts of the 

 queen should be noted, as it foreshadows an important phylogenetic 

 development exhibiting two different modifications, one of which is 

 excessive, the other defective, in comparison with the primitive and 

 independent type of colony formation. The excessive, or redundant, 

 type is known to occur only among the Attiine ants of tropical America. 

 These raise fungi for food and are quite unable to subsist on any other 

 diet. The queens are often very large, especially in the typical genus 

 .Itta, and not only manage to bring to maturity a brood of workers, as 

 has been shown (p. 329 et scq.}, but at the same time have energy to 

 spare to devote to the cultivation of a fungus garden. With the appear- 

 ance of the first brood of workers, however, these queens, like those of 

 most other ants, degenerate into parasites on their own progeny. 



