SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILE ANTS. 153 



were all hostile to her. 1 then put her with a number of pupas and a 

 few newly-hatched ? s, not yet fully-coloured, from a nest I had under 

 observation. I found these immature ^ s indifferent to the 2 , though 

 the full-coloured ones were hostile. The $ assisted the pupa3 to hatch, 

 thus forming a small nest. On September 17th I introduced some $ s 

 from the parent nest into this small one. They very soon found the 

 2 and attacked her, so that I had to take them out of the nest and 

 separate thein. I then put in a F. ftmca slave from the parent nest. 

 This F. fnaca, though friendly to the ^ s, as were the ^ s from the 

 parent nest, attacked the 5 viciously. Eventually the i<'. sajir/z/tHCfl 2, 

 during the struggle, caught the F. fitt^ca by the back of the thorax, killing 

 the ant with a single bite. On October iind I again introduced a ? 

 from the old nest. It found and attacked the 2 immediately. I put 

 no more in till March, 1909, when I put in two ^ s on the 12th. 

 I watched carefully, but could see no signs of fighting. On March 

 17th and 18th 1 put in two more, and on the 19th, 20th, and 21st put 

 in two each day. There w'as no fighting at all, so at 12.45 p.m. on 

 March 21st I placed the two nests about four inches apart and opened 

 the entrances. On returning at 2.10 p.m. I found the 2 transferred 

 from the new nest to the old, and the ^ s from the latter were engaged 

 in carrying the workers from the new nest to their own. The two 

 nests became one, which is still in existence (January, 1910). During 

 1909 the 2 laid a number of eggs, all of which were devoured by the 

 ^ s. In a nest of F. saiujuinca and F. fiisca with no ? , a number of eggs 

 were laid by the F. sannuinca and F. fusca ^ s during 1904, but all were 

 eaten. On .July 19th, 1903, I put a number of F. fusca pupse (both ^ 

 and 2 ) ^iitl larvae outside a small observation nest of F. saiujuinea. 

 The F. saniiiiinea carried in the larvte and pupte, killing a few ^ s that 

 were among them. About the same time I put in a fertile F. fusca 2 , 

 which they killed. Some of these F. fusca larvte w'ere eaten by the ants, 

 but others became pupae. 



On September 18th, after having been away for a fortnight, I 

 found most of the F. fusca pups had hatched, and there were in the 

 nest a F. fusca 2 with one wing, another with only the two lower 

 wings, and two 2 s without wings. There had been noc? s in the nest, 

 and these $ s were not fertile. During the autumn of 1903 and the 

 winter the examples of F. fusca in this nest (they outnumbered the 

 F. sa)Uiuinea) were continually being pulled about by the F. saufiuiuca, 

 two or three of the latter often attacking one F. fusca. The larger F. 

 fusca ? s and the 2 s seemed to be chiefly molested. One of the 5 s died 

 during September, and another on October 14th, both having been 

 attacked by F. sani/uiiwa and F. fusca ^ s. The headless body of the third 

 was found outside the nest on May 4th, 1904, but the fourth lived till 

 June 20th. This same nest of F. saufiuhica was doubled in size by the 

 addition of ? s from two nests at Wellington College. At first they 

 seemed inclined to fight with the original occupants, but in a few hours 

 they voluntarily entered the nest and joined forces with the others 

 (August 16th, 1904). I gave the nest a number of F. rufa pupa?, 

 which they readily carried in. On September 9th, when there was a 

 large number of F. rufa ^ s in the nest, I put a fertile F. rufa 2 to the 

 door of the nest. She entered without hesitation, and was unnoticed 

 by the F. satic/uinea and F. rufa, but two F. fusca attacked her violently, 

 and later a /*'. samjuhwa and a /•'. fusca. The following day she was 



