444 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF ['l^ulv, 



eggs and the young larvaj continued to perish. Meantime two of 

 her eggs, given on January 31 to the care of three alien workers 

 living in a cell by themselves, had producea one queen and one 

 king. 



After four months of failure had sufficiently shown the inability 

 of this queen to alone rear her larvse, I attempted to reconcile her 

 to alien helpers, putting in at different times from other colonies five 

 young workers of ages varying from a few days to a few hours, and 

 all were killed by her, or were removed on account of endangering 

 her life. One callow minor, after having been nine days in the 

 cell with the queen, nipped her so viciously and tenaciously that I 

 could release her only by decapitating her enemy. The mutual 

 fear and hostility of the queen and the alien workers, with the 

 common desire to possess and care for the eggs, always resulted in 

 the scattering and eventual loss of the eggs. 



However, two other alien workers, one minor and one minim, 

 introduced into the cell when but a few hours old, after several 

 days' residence with the queen and numerous timid tentative 

 approaches, perfectly affiliated with her. She laid no eggs there- 

 after until the ninth day in an eggless cell, and then she continued 

 to lay an egg or two daily, to be picked up and taken care of by 

 her adopted callows. Two white pupa3 were also introduced into 

 the eggless cell and there became ants, and in June the long 

 solitary and childless queen had four devoted workers caring for 

 her own young larvpe. 



Ants have great aptitude in the recognition of their kin of the 

 same colony. A colony found in the woods just previous to its 

 swarming, on September 7, 1900, was divided and placed in two 

 nests, C-e and C-d, each with one queen. After eight months of 

 separation, ants brought together from the two nests j^erfectly and 

 immediately affiliated. 



Sister-queens of this colony, kept apart in Petri cells with a few 

 workers to June 17, 1901, were after nine months' separation 

 from their colony, received back with distrust. They were nabbed 

 and held by the workers, but they were themselves quiescent. 

 The attacks of the workers were hesitating and tentative, and after 

 they had passed their autennte over the whole body of the visiting 

 queen, they left her alone. After a few hours in the nest, she was 

 beside her former associate, and the svorkers w'ere gathered around 



