438 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Julv, 



presents a precipice, the attempt to push the enemy over it is 

 always noticeable. The successful use of the sting does not appear 

 to be fatal to an ant-enemy, although it gives pain in the human 

 hand for an hour or more. 



Notwithstanding the general harmony and mutual helpfulness in 

 a colony of Stenamma fulviun 2^i'(^eum, the ants have their indi- 

 vidual quarrels. Three queens had lived by themselves serenely 

 in a Petri cell for five months, giving common care for four 

 months to their single group of eggs, when two of the queens- 

 began a tug of war, standing head to head, one holding the other 

 by a mandible, and dragging or pushing her over and around 

 the sponges. Uncovering the cell, watering the sponges, intro- 

 ducing an alien worker caused no cessation of the fray. The 

 third queen, distinguished from the other two by a fragment of 

 wing on one side, made frequent excursions to inspect the two 

 belligerents, and then returned quickly to continue her care of 

 the eggs. The battle persisted, with biief intervals, for four days, 

 and then one of the two combatants was left on the side of the cell 

 opposite the eggs, and there she remained in isolation for the 

 ensuing ten days. I several times lifted her and placed her close 

 to the other two queens and the eggs, but every time her wingless 

 enemy seized her by the small of her back, carried her across the 

 cell, and cast her down in the place for refuse, or else attacked and 

 drove her back lo her place of banishment. On the eleventh 

 day the banished queen, was permitted to return to her two sister 

 queens and the eggs, but she died on the following afternoon. 



One who watches the proceedings of these ants through many 

 months finds numerous occasions when the sequence of events 

 strongly suggests a designed punishment of individual offenders in 

 the colony. Twice I have seen an assembly of older ants, its 

 members ranged at nearly equal distances, forming a circle with all 

 heads toward the centre, remaining motionless except in vibrations 

 of the antennae or a curious shaking of the abdomen, certainl}^ 

 for some hours, and jirobably for some days. These assemblages 

 were each succeeded by an execution. In the one case an ant was 

 torn asunder and cast in the kitchen-midden. In the other case 

 one ant was dismembered, and another ant picked up the head and 

 thorax of the dismembered victim and carried it about in the food- 

 room. She was carrying it at all the many times when I looked 



