LITERATURE FOR 1916 ON ANTS AND MYRMECOPHILS 429 



in the Sierras in Southern California. The author calls atten- 

 tion to the fact that Emery has shown that the fecundated and 

 dealated female of Polyergus founds the colony by entering a 

 Fusca nest, killing the queen and taking her place. Wheeler 

 suggests that perhaps the Polyergus queen stays behind after 

 the raid. Wheeler has made a very interesting observation en 

 the formation of the Polyergus colony in that on July 24 he 

 found an incipient colony of this species which was made up of 

 an ergatoid queen, about a dozen workers and two dozen slaves. 

 The ergatoid female is wingless but apparently can function as 

 a queen. Dissection shows that she has the same organs as the 

 winged queen form. If she is not fertilized, only male progeny 

 will be produced but she may be fertilized, either inside or out- 

 side the nest. 



Wheeler (19) publishes the first full account of the swarming 

 of the Australian bull-dog ant, Myrmecia sanguinea. During 

 the last week of November, he states, there were no winged 

 males or females in the nests of this ant, but plenty of larvae 

 and small numbers of worker pupae. The lack of winged forms 

 was surprising (19) as the sexual forms of most of the ants of 

 New South Wales are to be found in the nests in late October 

 and early November. It was found later, that the sexual forms 

 of the bull-dog ant do not mature till January. They were 

 observed to swarm on January 30 after some very hot, stormy 

 weather. The winged forms were present by thousands and were 

 flying and crawling about in the bushes where copulation was 

 taking place. There were apparently hundreds of males to one 

 female; result, every female was surrounded by a mass of males 

 as big as one's fist. The balls of ants were continually breaking 

 apart and new ones were forming. These ants, which ordinarily 

 are exceedingly pugnacious and can clearly discern objects 

 several feet away, paid no attention to the observer. A simi- 

 lar flight of this ant is described as taking place in early April, 

 in South Australia. 



Wheeler (19) points out that these observations prove that 

 the species of the Ponerine genus Myrmecia celebrate a regular 

 marriage flight like all the ants of the other taxonomic sub- 

 families, except the species with wingless males and females. 

 The flights occur in January in Northern New South Wales and 

 a few months later, farther south, in the colder parts of Aus- 



