Dec, igog.l WhEELER : OBSERVATIONS ON EUROPEAN AnTS. 181 



I. August 13. A large Tcframoriiim colony under half a dozen 

 rather large, flat, contiguous stones arrested my attention, because it 

 contained several hundred larvae, all of the same size and of a 

 peculiar gray color, unlike the gleaming white larvae so abundant in 

 the other colonies of this ant! On scrutinizing the superficial 

 chambers of the nest more closely, I saw four fine, dealated Anergates 

 queens in the peculiar, obese or physogastric condition, which this 

 alone of all European ants is able to attain. Three of these queens 

 were close together under the center of one of the stones, the other 

 was in a similar position under an adjacent stone. It was quite clear 

 then that the gray larvae were the offspring of these queens, and 

 from their size it was evident that they were mature and nearly or 

 quite ready to pupate. Of course, there were besides only Tctra- 

 moriimi workers in the colony and none of their larvae. I do nol 

 know whether other observers have noticed the singular uniformity 

 in the age and development of the larvae of Anergates. It is very 

 striking, though it is what we should expect, for the life of the 

 Anergates colony must be of short duration, since it cannot exceed 

 that of its sterile host, the Tetramorium workers. It is, indeed, quite 

 possible that the whole development of the Anergates colony does not 

 require more than a year, or, at any rate, that the queens of this 

 species become physogastric, owing to the rapid and enormous de- 

 velopment of their ovaries, and begin to lay within a few months 

 after entering the Tetrarnorimn colony, and that the brood matures 

 by the following summer. Owing to the altitude at which this colony 

 was found (about i,6oo m.), the maturity of the brood must have 

 been greatly delayed and probably would not have hatched till the 

 latter part of August or early in September. In my former paper* 

 I described a fine Anergates colony which I found near Vaud, June 

 6, 1907, at a much lower elevation. This already contained the 

 imaginal brood of the summer. 



2. August 14. In the same locality but lower down the slope and 

 less than a hundred meters from the Matter, I detected a second colony, 

 which, however, was small and depauperate and was living under a 

 single small stone. This colony, too, contained a number of the 

 gray larvae, which, as in the preceding case, were all of the same 

 size and partly adhering by means of their hooked, dorsal hairs to 

 the lower surface of the stone. The nest also contained a number of 



* Comparative Ethology, etc., loco citato, p. 430. 



