THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 397 



as those with which the farmer has himself to meet. These ex- 

 periments are conducted in such a way that farmers xan sec just 

 what is done, how it is done, as well as the object of the experiment 

 itself. They can also see what results are obtained, and what we 

 have done, under their conditions, they, under like conditions, can 

 do for themselves; and the proof thereof is right before their eyes 

 in their own fields. We find that these object lessons and personal 

 contact are primarily worth vastly more than whole \olumes of 

 literature, and, gradually the farmer is coming to learn rhat there 

 is help for him as well as for the horticulturist, in combatting in- 

 sect pests, even though his acreage may be many times theirs and 

 his crops radically different in nature. 



ILLUSTRATED "LECTURE ON "ANTS" (ABSTRACT). 



BY PROF. W. M. WHEELER. 



Bussey Institution, Forest Hills, Mass. 



By way of preface the lecturer made some general statements 

 in regard to the 5,000 known species and sub-species of ants, des- 

 cribed the development and metamorphosis of the individual 

 ant, the various castes, or polymorphic phases represented by 

 each species and the function of each of these castes in the life of 

 the colony. Then the general behavior of ants was treated from 

 the standpoint of the three basic biological activities, namely 

 reproduction, nutrition and protection. 



Special emphasis was placed on the behavior of the female^ 

 or queen ant and her methods of establishing the colony in con- 

 trast with the behavior of the queen honey-bee and with the 

 male ant, which takes no part in the activities of the colony as 

 such, but functions only as a fecundating agency during the 

 nuptial flight. The queen ant was shown to possess all the 

 instincts of the w^orker forms in addition to some of her own and 

 thus to represent the most complete embodiment or epitome of 

 the species. This statement requires qualification only in the 

 case of certain parasitic and slave-making species, in which the 

 queen is degenerate like the queen honey-bee and no longer 

 able to establish a colony and bring up the first brood of her off- 

 spring without the aid of workers either of her own or of an alien 

 species. 



November, 1013 



