THE AGASSIZ ASS< )CIATION 



Peculiar Rose Bloom. 



BY SUSAN TUCKER, CHENEY, WASHING- 

 TON. CORRESPONDING MEMBER NO. 2047. 



Several years ago I found a rose 

 growing near a swamp at the base of 

 a high cliff. The flowers were much 

 larger than any I had found before. 

 1 brought a few plants home the next 

 spring and they have always attracted 

 much attention. They have had no cul- 

 tivation except to be thinned out and 

 sometimes cut back just enough to keep 

 them in bounds. 



For at least three seasons I have 

 noticed some freak flowers on one bush 

 that prove an interesting study in ter- 

 atology. 



As I cannot draw well enough to 

 make illustrations I enclose pressed 

 flowers to show you what I have seen. 



You will see that some sepals have 

 been transformed into petals. I have 

 never found a flower with all five sepals 

 changed but frequently found four. 

 You will see also that one specimen 

 shows more buds in a cluster than 

 is usual with this rose. And one speci- 

 men may show a stipule that looks like 

 a petal. My best specimen showing 

 this dropped the stipules in drying. 

 One specimen has sharply pointed leaf- 

 lets while other leaflets on same stem 

 are rounder than usual. 



T enclosed a few petals to show you 

 how large they are. This is probably 

 a form of Rosa Xittkani. 



The plant from which these branches 

 were gathered are ten feet high forming 

 perfect trees with well rounded heads, 

 if a little care is given in pruning in 

 the spring. 



Ant-Hills: An Informal Investigation. 



BY NORBERT WIENER, CORRESPONDING 

 MEMBER NO. 2073. 



The nests of different varieties of 

 ants show interesting and instructive 

 variations among themselves. As a 

 matter of fact, no two ant-hills are pre- 

 cisely alike, either in structure or ma- 

 terial. The massive heap of decayed 

 wood forming the home of the large 

 ants, both red and black, is incompar- 

 ably different from the home of the 

 most minute species under some pro- 

 tecting rock. 



Probably the primitive ancestors of 



our present ants did live under rocks. 

 This seems to be the most elementary 

 kind of a dwelling found in all antdom. 

 There is no plan at all to the complex 

 ramification of interlacing passages 

 and the pupa compartments are distrib- 

 uted irregularly throughout the nest. 

 We merely have a highly complicated 

 labyrinth of tubes and cells with no 

 order whatsoever. It seems to be fitted 

 to the most undifferentiated type of ant, 

 which, I believe, is the case. 



The next advance in architecture 

 consists in the building of the tunnels 

 without the protection of a rock, and 

 the formation of small mounds of waste 

 earth at the mouth of the tunnels open- 

 ing directly to the outer air. Here we 

 have, first, the utilization of the waste 

 earth (this was not necessary in the 

 previous stages, on account of the easy 

 excavation just under the stone) ; sec- 

 ond, the formation of definite entrance 

 to the nest and, third, the uniformly 

 deep and protected situation of the 

 pupa compartments. The safety of the 

 nest is thus greatly in excess of that in 

 the previous case and it is therefore 

 the more common type of dwelling. 



The highest and most interesting 

 type is the ant-hill proper. This con- 

 sists of a pile of earth and rotten wood 

 about a foot in height, carefully ce- 

 mented together by some secretion of 

 the ants themselves. The openings to 

 the outside are well marked apertures 

 on the walls of the pile, while in no case 

 do the tunnels extend to the ground be- 

 neath. The nest is cpiite free from all 

 intruders that may tunnel in and the 

 colony gains greatly in its unity. The 

 pupae are far more safe than in the 

 other forms, owing to their situation 

 near the axis of the conical hillock, and 

 its elevated position makes it a good 

 place from which its masters may 

 swoon in exneditions to plunder an- 

 other nest. In short, this nest is to 

 the orimitive burrow under a stone as 

 the hive of the honeybee is to that of 

 the bumblebee. All ; s indicative of a 

 higrh decree of specialized instinct, if not 

 of intelligence', and shows that the ants 

 who build this nest must be at the cul- 

 mination of the formican line. Corre- 

 lated with specialization in instinct 



