140 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1819. 



bourne, stating that two observers, whom Dr. M. believed perfectly 

 credible, had, independently of each other, witnessed similar pro- 

 tection in that country. 



Dr. Kenderdine said he had personally seen a case where a garter 

 snake so protected its young. 



Mode of Depositing Ant-eggs. Mr. McCook stated that a queen 

 of the black carpenter ant, Gamponotus Pennsylvanicus, whieh 

 had long been kept in an artificial nest, had once been seen in the 

 act of depositing an egg. The queen was at the time clinging to 

 the side of a hollow in the surface of the earth, almost in a verti- 

 cal position. The usual body-guard of workers quite surrounded 

 her, continually touching her with their antennae. The egg was a 

 white cylindrical object, about one-eighth of an inch in length. It 

 was about two minutes in escaping from the body, and as soon as 

 dropped was carried below within the galleries by a worker. The 

 queen was never left by her body-guard, who sought to control 

 her movements by pressing around her, blocking up the path 

 which she wished to take. Frequently more vigorous persuasions 

 were used, an antenna or leg being grasped by a worker, and the 

 queen thus pulled backward. She made no attacks upon her guard, 

 but often stubbornly held her own way; though commonly yield- 

 ing more or less graciously to her attendants. This colony had 

 been received from the Allegheny Mountains in December, within 

 their formicary in an oak bough, in which they were hibernating, 

 being quite stiff with cokl. They immediately revived in the 

 warmth, and were healthy and active during the following spring. 

 The queen survived until September following, and would doubt- 

 less have lived longer had she not been neglected during a pro- 

 longed absence in summer. She outlived all her subjects, and was 

 certainly more than a year old. 



April 29. 

 The President, Dr. Ruschenberger, in the chair. 

 Thirty-eight persons present. 



Note on the Marriage-flights of Lasius flavus and Myrmica 

 Jobricornis. Rev. H. C. McCook remarked that the first named 

 ant is one of the most familiar objects in nature. Its small 

 dusk3' -yellow workers may be seen in every American lawn, walk, 

 field, and yard, throwing up its fragile moundlets of sand-pellets, 

 and swarming upon particles of fruit, crumbs, bones, dead insects, 

 and all manner of sweets. It is quite cosmopolitan in its distri- 

 bution, and is well known in Europe. The following observation 

 of the annual marriage-flight of the sexes was made September 5, 

 1878, in the vicinity of Philadelphia. The nests observed were 



