496 



ANTS. 



the soil in search of Monomorium nests. \\'hen near the entrance 

 of one of these, she is " arrested," to use Santschi's expression, 

 by a number of Monomorium workers, which tug at her legs and 

 antenna- and sometimes draw her into the galleries. At other times 

 she may he seen to dart into the nest entrance suddenly, so that 

 she is arrested within the nest itself. There are no signs of anger on 

 the part of the Monomorium and she is soon able to move about in the 

 galleries without restraint. The workers forthwith feed and adopt 

 her. In the course of a few days she begins to lay eggs which are 

 received and cared for by the Monomorium workers. Santschi observed 

 that the colonies infested with ll'hcclcriclla were usually of small size, 

 had an impoverished appearance and lacked queens of the host species, 

 and he was able to account for these peculiar conditions. The IVhccl- 



ericlla queen pays no at- 

 tention to the much larger 

 Monomorium queen, but 

 this insect is 'assassinated 

 by her own workers and 

 the parasitic queen is 

 adopted in her place. 

 Forel believes that this 

 singular perversion of in- 

 stinct is due to the prefer- 



ence of the workers for 

 a smaller fertile indivi- 

 dual, just as the Tctra- 

 morium workers prefer 

 to rear the small males 

 and females of Strongy- 

 lognathus instead of their 

 own bulky sexual phases. 

 This explanation is not 

 very satisfactory, how- 

 ever, for, as we have 

 seen, the huge mother Tetramorium is retained in the nest, whereas 

 it is precisely this individual that is destroyed in the infested Mono- 

 morium colonies. Hence there must be some other reason for the 

 assassination of the host queen by her own progeny. 



2. Epi.rcnns andrci and creticus. These ants have been recently 

 described by Emery (19080), the former from females taken between 

 Jaffa and Jerusalem in a nest of Monomorium venustum, and originally 

 referred to this species by Ern. Andre (18816"), the latter from a single 



FIG. 276. 



Wheelericlla santschii of Tunis ; female 

 (Original.) 



