428 WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER 



Wasmann ^^°, replying to Schmitz ''^ admits that his views on 

 the relations of Atemeles to its hosts have undergone a change 

 within recent years. He repeated Schmitz 's experiment with 

 larvas of A. emarginatus and A. truncicoloides and found that 

 they were indeed able to bury themselves in the ground and to 

 pupate without the aid of the ants. He believes, however, that 

 Formica remains the definitive host of Atemeles because it alone, 

 of the two hosts, feeds and cares for the larvee, and he seeks 

 to harmonize his observations on the F. rufibarbis workers, which 

 for two weeks watched the spot in which they had buried Atemeles 

 larvae, with his view that only the forgotten beetle larvae sur- 

 vive, on the ground that these larvae are often unearthed and 

 killed at a very late date. Under natural conditions the watch- 

 ing of the buried pupae for long periods probably leads to the 

 destruction of most or all of them by the host ants. 



Wasmann '^' publishes a number of observations as a supple- 

 ment to his many former papers on social parasitism in ants. 

 He introduces the following new terms: " primary pleometrosis," 

 for the cases of alliance between two or more queens of the 

 same species or subspecies in founding a common colony ; ' ' secon- 

 dary pleometrosis," for similar alliances at a later date, e.g., 

 the adoption of daughter queens after fecundation in the parental 

 nest or of queens of the same species but from different colonies, 

 after the marriage flight; "primary allometrosis," for alliance 

 between females of different species or subspecies in forming 

 colonies, and " secondary * allometrosis, " for the presence of 

 queens of different species or subspecies in a single colony at a 

 later date. The remainder of the article is taken up with an 

 account of experiments on colony formation by young queens of 

 Formica truncicola, sanguinea, and rufa, the supposed temporary 

 parasitism of certain species of Lasius, the compound nests of 

 Leptothorax acervorum and mtiscorum with species of Formica 

 and Myrmica, the description of the male of a supposedly new 

 parasitic ant, Pheidole symbiotica, found in a colony of Ph. 

 pallidula, a supposedly new parasitic Myrmica (M. 'inyrmeco- 

 phila), and a criticism and distorted account of Wheeler's obser- 

 vations on colony formation in Formica rufa. 



Wellman '" while collecting in West Africa observed a small 

 fly which was laying eggs on living ants (Cremastogaster sp.). 

 " The fly rested on her victim, inserted her ovipositor, and then 



