64 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



quence of their long imprisonment, basking in the warmth of the sun to- 

 dry their bodies and to give color and tone to their systems, preparatory 

 to entering upon the duties of the fonnicariuni. 



The full-grown neuters were the very pictures of restlessness. Con- 

 sternation was evidently written upon their looks, if I may be permitted 

 so to speak, and clearly evidenced in their hasty and dubious movements. 

 The ova, larvae and pupae were being carried away to places of security 

 beneath the ground, or bustled away to the neighboring grasses, in short,, 

 wherever their nurses could find safe and comfortable quarters for them. 



Looking around me to find the cause of ail this turmoil, my eyes soon 

 rested upon tvro or three individuals of Fo7'mica subien-aiiea, Lat. which, 

 had intruded their unbidden presence into this peaceful and hitherto 

 happy family. There is no doubt that these ruthless invaders of this 

 flourishing oasis of ant-life, were bent upon plunder or slaughter. 



If pillage was their motive, these giants no doubt soon learned that 

 if their weaker, more distant kin were unable to cope with them in 

 strength, they could assuredly make up for its loss in stratagem, sagacity 

 and numbers. 



Not daring to attack their more powerful neighbors, after having 

 sheltered the more tender, and being unable to defend their comrades 

 who had just attained perfection and who were necessarily impotent, or 

 to carry them to places of safety in view of their weight, in order to 

 defeat the plans of the foe they set to work and destroyed those upon 

 which but a few days before they had lavished the most endearing, 

 attentions. 



While the major part of the workers were engaged in looking after the 

 wants of the immature, and manifesting a readiness to j^^ovide for their 

 further safety, should necessity demand it, a few were observed running 

 about seizing in their mandibles the newly developed, not to bear them 

 beyond the reach of danger, as was at first supposed, but to save them a 

 life of servitude mayhap, at any rate to keep them from falling a living 

 prey to the rapacity of the enemy. 



Knowing by experience the sympathy and affection which the nurses 

 ever bear towards these frail and tender objects of their care, this act of 

 inhumanity, so to speak, struck me as peculiarly novel and astonishing. 

 Prompted by curiosity to know the nature of the wounds inflicted, I 

 raised a still struggling being up, and having placed it upon the palm of 



