298 \\-HEELER. 



grew denser decided to move, and columns of workers and soldiers 

 began to emerge from the top of the long orifice, crawled out over the 

 bark and descended to the ground. In these columns balls of ants 

 appeared from time to time, each more or less completely enveloping 

 an elongate object, which proved to be a large cocoon, 20 mm. long, 

 of a rich brown color and tough consistency. I supposed at first that 

 these cocoons belonged to some large Camponotus or Pachycondyla 

 whose nest had been plundered on one of the preceding days, but on 

 opening one of them I w^as delighted to find that it contained a nearly 

 mature male Eciton pupa (Fig. 3b and c) ! In all more than a hundred 

 of these cocoons were brought out and each was moved along with the 

 greatest solicitude by an ant cluster as big as a hen's egg. There 

 were also a few young or half grown burchcUi larvse, but no worker 

 puppe. 



We now discovered that a large column of the ants was lea%'ing 

 the caA-ity by a small opening, which we had overlooked, on the oppo- 

 site side of the trunk, and was descending to the ground and assembling 

 in masses on the dead leaves. After we had moved our chairs to this 

 new scene of acti\-ity, Mr. Emerson observed a large halting mass of 

 workers in the column and on thrusting his tweezers into it drew forth 

 a young queen (Fig. 2), which was being very slowly piloted along liy a 

 dense cloud of attendants. We had spent the whole morning crouch- 

 ing on our chairs in an uncomfortable position, though out of reach 

 of the ants, and being elated by the capture of the queen returned 

 to the laboratory for lunch. At three o'clock we found masses of 

 ants still resting on the dead leaves a few yards from the tree. A 

 second queen, precisely like the first, was discovered in one of these 

 masses. I infer that this was the onlv remaining female in the 

 colony, for after her removal a perceptible apathy or dejection seemed 

 to fall on the whole body of ants. They l^ecame much less active and 

 aggressiA'e and with some hesitation formed a single dense and rather 

 slowly moA-ing column that made oft" through the jungle, attended by 

 a small swarm of hovering Stylogasters, which had somehow made 

 their appearance during the lunch hour. We searched the departing 

 army for ecitophiles and succeeded in capturing several specimens 

 of three species of Staphylinids (Mimeciton). They very closely 

 resembled the smallest workers both in color and behavior, but were 

 more difficult to catch and all seemed to belong to portions of the 

 colony that had formed the immediate entourage of the queens. At 

 any rate, none was taken from the masses of ants enveloping the male 

 cocoons, although I had thrown all of these masses together with 



