PROBLEM OF COMMUNAL DEPENDENTS 



had been wholly dependent for food and care upon the 

 workers of the colony during the entire summer. 



Again, on a warm day late in June or early in July, 

 one may see the air, at a short distance above the ground 

 and for many square yards around, filled so thickly with 

 flying insects that they seem like a thin cloud of quiver- 

 ing mist. They are the sexed forms of a small species 

 of Lasius, whose inconspicuous nests are spread numer- 

 ously over the lawn and field. 



Many of these make their exit and marriage-flight at 

 the same time (Fig. 75). They rise and fall, and weave 

 in and out through the quivering air in their mating evo- 

 lutions, sporting in the sunlight. They fill one with won- 

 der that such a feeble folk as rule the weak communities 

 whence they issue could bear the burden of nurturing 

 into maturity such swarms of dependents. 



But considerable as are these outputs of non- workers, 

 they do not strike the imagination so forcibly as some 



v . 



of the well-authenticated accounts of immense marriage- 

 flights of ants that have been published. 1 It seems 

 incredible that the whole surface of a lake of two 

 lakes, in fact should be covered so thickly with these 

 winged creatures that they could be pushed up by 

 passing boats into windrows several inches high and 

 extending from shore to shore on all sides, as in the 

 observations of Mr. W. C. Prime on Lake Lonesome. 



It is interesting to note that this is not a novel oc- 

 currence. Such disasters have marked the history of 

 flying ants from the earliest ages. Professor Wheeler 

 spent the summer of 1906 collecting in the Florissant 

 fields of Colorado, noted for their rich yields of fossil 



1 For details, see author's Nature's Craftsmen, chap, ii, Harper 

 & Brothers, New York. 



175 



