134 ANTS REMOVED AS PUP^E, AND EESTORED 



them had been almost completely cleaned. One was 

 attacked for about a minute soon after 1 1 , and another 

 a little later; but with these exceptions they were 

 quite amicably received, and seemed entirely at home 

 among the other ants. 



Thus every one of these thirty-two ants was amic- 

 ably received. 



These experiments, then, seem to prove that ants 

 removed from a nest in the condition of pupse, but 

 tended by friends, if reintroduced into the parent nest, 

 are recognised and treated as friends. Nevertheless 

 the recognition does not seem to have been complete. 

 In several cases the ants were certainly attacked, 

 though only by one or two ants, not savagely, and only 

 for a short time. It seemed as if, though recognised 

 as friends by the great majority, some few, more 

 ignorant or more suspicious than the rest, had doubts 

 on the subject, which, however, in some manner 

 still mysterious,, were ere long removed. The case 

 in which one of these marked ants was carried out of 

 the nest may perhaps be explained by her having been 

 supposed to be ill, in which case, if the malady is con- 

 sidered to be fatal, ants are generally brought out of 

 the nest. 



It now remained to test the result when the pupse 

 were confided to the care of ants belonging to a different 

 nest, though, of course, the same species. 



I therefore took a number of pupae out of some of 

 my nests of Formica fusca and put them in small 



