ANT COMMUNITIES 



One must note in this a beneficent arrangement; for the 

 soldiers, nut being exposed to the temptation of feeding 

 directly upon the food which they carve for the workers, 

 and which must thus all pass through their "hands," 

 make sure that the dependents are not stinted or 

 starved and the community thereby imperilled. This 

 characteristic seems all the more important in view of 

 the philoprogenitive defects of these soldiers. A species 

 of Pheidole is found in and around Philadelphia, and it 



v.\ 



- - ^SffW.^W^.-^,^ : 

 .- ;;->:>,.<,. &&' 



Fig. 59 SECTION PENNSYLVANIA HARVESTING ANT 



Sectional cutting, showing storerooms, or granaries, in site, of 



Pheidole pennsylvanica. 



the 



too is characterized by a big-headed worker caste. I 

 have made observations of its seed-storing habits (Fig. 

 59), but it remains to be learned whether the soldiers 

 have acquired so remarkable a role as that of communal 

 trenchermen. [McC. 4, p. 148.] 



Some of the feeding habits of the Indian Leptogenys 

 are interesting. Writing of Lobopolata distinguenda, Mr. 

 Wroughton says [Wr. 1, pp. 50-58] that it is occasion- 



118 



