170 SUPPLEMENT TO 



of its clescenclants, still remains in the old home, and 

 very few out of the many nests which I have watched 

 during the past three years, and of which I have 

 noted and mapped the positions, have been deserted. 

 On my return to Mentone in October, IS 73, I has- 

 tened to examine the nests between which war had 

 Ijeen carried on in the previous 3"ear {Ants and Spiders, 

 p. 38), and found in one case that the vanquished nest 

 was completely lifeless and abandoned, while the vic- 

 torious colony was remarkably thriving, and its gra- 

 naries teemed with seeds. The locality occupied by 

 the other belligerent colonies had unfortunately been 

 built over. 



I have often been asked whether I could give an 

 approximate estimate of the quantity of seeds contained 

 in a nest of average size, but I have hitherto felt 

 imable to do this in a satisfactory manner. I am now 

 in possession of more reliable data, and believe that 

 the following calculation ma}'' be taken as a near 

 approximation to the truth. During the spring of 

 1873 I removed with but very little loss the contents 

 of two granaries from a very extensive nest of Affa 

 .sirudor, consisting principally of seeds of clover, fumi- 

 tor}^ and pellitory. These seeds, when perfectly clean 

 and freed from earth, weighed in the one case 

 4 sc. 4 grs., and in the other 5 sc. 8 grs. Now 

 there cannot have been less than eighty such gra- 

 naries in this nest, so that, if Ave take five scruples as the 

 average weight of the seeds in each granary, and this, 

 allowing for loss in collection, which we may fairly 

 do, we should have a total weight of more than sixteen 

 ounces, or one pound avoirdupois weight of seeds con- 

 tained in the nest. But, though this mass of seeds 



