BEHAVIOR OF ANTS AND MYRMECOPHILES 415 



species of Lasius. Of all these, only two queens were completely- 

 adopted. This low percentage can be partially explained by 

 the difficulty of keeping queens of L. latipes alive in confine- 

 ment. It is doubtful if in nature even this small proportion of 

 the queens succeed in forming colonies, for colonies of the spe- 

 cies are not very abundant, in spite of the fact that a great 

 number of queens are produced in each colony. 



Queens of this species and of Lasius americanus were placed 

 together. Neither species showed hostility toward the other, 

 though their temperaments were decidedly different, latipes 

 being very restless, and running constantly about. The fact 

 that both species of queens lived amicably together might be 

 taken to indicate that mixed colonies may be founded in 

 common by two queens of different species, but the nervous 

 behavior of latipes and its attraction to any brood, with which 

 it settles contentedly, is taken by Tanquary to show that it 

 is more plausible to believe that this species is a temporary 

 parasite. 



Experiments were made with 88 queens of Lasius umbratus 

 var. minutus and workers of several other Lasius species. Of 

 this lot only one queen was adopted by L. americanus. But 

 this one case indicates that minutus is parasitic on americanus. 

 The minutus queens are feeble, and easily killed, succumbing to 

 treatment that would not be fatal to ordinary species. The 

 sporadic occurrence of the species, with the large number of 

 queens produced (a quart of earth from the one nest was found 

 to contain about 150), is taken as justification of this conclusion. 



Queens of Polyergus lucidus were placed with colonies of 

 Formica incerta and F. schaufussi. The queens were attacked 

 by the workers, but defended themselves with vigor, one of 

 them killing all of the fifteen workers with which she was con- 

 fined. In two experiments the queen was adopted by incerta 

 after being at first attacked. An incerta queen in one of the 

 nests was killed by Polyergus, after which the workers adopted 

 the alien queen. In no case did any of the Polyergus queens 

 pay any attention to the young. 



Queens of F. ncpticula were tried with colonies of F. incerta, 

 F. fnsca var. subaenescens and F. neogagates. With the first 

 two the results were negative, the queen being killed very soon, 



