FOUNDING OF SLAVE-MAKING COMMUNES 



acted quite like the old queens, who at once fly to the 

 galleries and lower rooms when a nest is opened or 

 lighted up. On July 26th, eighteen days after its be- 

 ginning, this experiment was ended and the ants turned 

 loose in the garden to shift for themselves. 



These two experimental observations which I have 

 thus presented in abstract fairly typify the results gain- 

 ed by the patient and ingenious observer. As he remarks, 

 " the reactions displayed are so definite, uniform, and pur- 

 poseful, even in artificial nests, that one can hardly doubt 

 that they are similarly manifested in a state of nature." 



If, then, we will permit imagination sufficient play 

 to suppose our ant queen expatriated and wandering 

 solitary, we can fairly picture the process by which a 

 slave-holding commune may be established in natural 

 site. Through fa oring chance and native instinct she 

 falls upon a nest of some inquiline species Formica sub- 

 sericea, let us say. She pushes her way into the room, 

 vestibule, or hall, hoping, mayhap, for a welcome and an 

 amicable adoption. The amazed and alarmed inmates 

 seize their cocoons and larvae and fly before her into the 

 lower galleries and rooms. To cover their retreat, a few 

 devoted patriots advance to meet and attack the in- 

 truder. Her choler rises before this inhospitable re- 

 ception, and at once her latent war-like and predatory 

 instincts are aroused, and she flings herself upon her 

 assailants. Her superior size, strength, and martial spirit 

 make her a match for many of the unwarlike blacks, 

 and the home defenders are slain. There follows a pro- 

 longed quarrel, and the caverns of the Subsericean 

 commune witness a succession of conflicts and manoeu- 

 vres for the possession of the infant antlings and their 

 nurseries and home. 



269 



