1883.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 303 



Ordinaril}^ Absecom pond is purely fresh water, and contains 

 in abundance tlie usual ])lants and animals characteristic of fresh 

 waters. Mr. Stuart Wood stated that in occasional extreme high 

 tide of Absecom Creek, the pond had been subjected to the over- 

 flow of salt water. 



How a Carpenter Ant Queen founds a Formicary. — Rev. Dr. 

 McCooK presented three specimens of fertile queens of the Penn- 

 sylvania carpenter ant, CamjyonotHS pennsylvanicus. These had 

 been given him by Dr. Joseph Leidy, wlio had taken them during 

 the last summer at Wallingford, Delaware Co., Pa. The circum- 

 stances under which they were captured afforded a good demon- 

 stration of the manner in which a new colony of this and other 

 species is begun, confirming the speaker's own observations and 

 published statements. One specimen was taken, August 9, in a 

 chestnut log; the others, August 14, in the stump of a chestnut- 

 tree. They were enclosed within small cavities about an inch in 

 diameter, and, curiously, the queens had sealed themselves within 

 their nests bj- closing up the original opening by which they had 

 entered, and from which, as a nucleus, they must have cut out 

 their resident-room and nursery. If, therefore, they sallied forth 

 to obtain food, as they may have done (for Dr. McCook had at 

 various times observed queens wandering solitary), they must 

 have removed the plug or "door," and restored it to place again 

 upon re-entrance. However, he believed it to be quite within the 

 bounds of probability that a well-fed queen could live without 

 additional food for several weeks — a period long enough to rear 

 a small brood, and also feed the larvse from the contents of her 

 crop, which might serve as a storehouse of food, as was explained 

 b}' illustrations of the anatomy of the alimentary canal. 



In the same receptacle with the queens were found (I) the 

 white, oval or cylindrical eggs of the species ; ( 2) larvae of various 

 sizes, from those just escaped out of the egg (2-3 mm. long) to 

 full-grown (about 10 ram.) ; (3) the cocoons, or enclosed pupte; 

 and in one case (4) a callow antling, which had evidently just 

 escaped from its case. This antling was, as indeed all the larvae 

 and cocoons appeared to be, of the dwarf caste. There are three 

 castes in a formicary of Ga7nponotufi : the worker-major, the 

 worker-minor and the minim, or dwarf. We may infer that the 

 latter caste is the one which is first produced in rearing a family. 



In response to a remark and suggestion made that the imperfect 

 nurture given to the larvte, under the peculiar circumstances, might 

 account for the appearance of small workers first in order, Dr. 

 McCook stated that, whatever one might conjecture to have been 

 the fact in the remote origin of these castes among ants, it is certain 

 that when the formicary has been fully peopled with workers, and the 

 food-supply is unlimited, the several castes still continue to appear. 

 Minims, minors and majors not only abound among the mature 

 insects, but are found among the larvaj and cocoons. These 



