432 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [July^ 



separate bundle, the individuals being fastened together by the 

 hooks on their .surfaces, as the eggs were by their sticky shells. 

 The habit which is observable in Stenamnia fulvuin ])iceum, 

 in common with some other species of ants, of assorting the young 

 in accordance with the size and form, doubtless economizes labor 

 and also tends to the preservation of the young. The flexible neck 

 of the larva enables it to reach to a distance equal to a quarter of 

 its body-length, and to fix its mouth upon anything edil)le that is 

 witfiin its reach. I have observed a gradual diminution of the 

 eggs in every cell where the smallness of the working force pre- 

 vented that segregation of the larvre and that assortment accord- 

 ing to size which prevails in large communities; and I have also, 

 in such circumstances, seen full-grown larvae, and even pupaj, fall 

 victims to the voracity of the unfed younger larva3. 



The older larvre are often fed when lying upon their backs, the 

 ventral side serving as a place of deposit for food reached by the 

 curving of the neck, as described for Ponera coarctata by Prof. 

 Wheeler in the Biological Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. But this 

 feeding posture is with Stenamma fulvum picenm scarcely more 

 common than are others. Sometimes one larva is used as a table, 

 not only for its own feeding, but for the feeding of two or three 

 other larvie that are inclined against its sides to take their portion 

 of the same morsel. I have also seen five larvre set on end around 

 half the abdomen of a bisected house-fly, feeding voraciously from 

 its interior, like pigs around a trough. Sometimes the larva is 

 laid with its ventral side against a succulent portion of the insect, 

 and is left there to take its fill; sometimes it has a portion of meat 

 held to its mouth and forcibly removed as soon as it has had a 

 brief repast, and sometimes a worker stands with her head over 

 that of the larva and allows it to take food from her crop in a 

 manner resembling that in which a mother-pigeon feeds her young. 

 In my nests the very young larv?e have been fed solely upon regur- 

 gitated food. The older larvre have been given particles of flies, 

 mealworms, roaches, beetles, spiders, sponge-cake, white bread 

 moistened with sweetened water, and of dried yolk of hens' eggs. 

 They have also fed upon fragments of ants of other species, on 

 pupaj of alien colonies, and on the pup;e and larvic of Cremastogas- 

 ter lineolata and of Lasiiis tunbratiis. 



Larvic deprived wholly of insect food did not during a period of 



