1902.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 599 



NOTES ON AN ANT. 

 BY ADELE M. FIELDE. 



There is no regeneration of the antennce. —A queen of Stenamma 

 fulvum piceum^ deprived of her antennae in July, 1901, lived in 

 one of my artificial nests with workers and other queens until 

 January 5, 1902, and gave no indication of regenerating the lost 

 organs. Of the many ants whose antennse were wholly or par- 

 tially excised by me in 1901, in the experiments made upon the 

 ants' sense of smell, ^ some lived several months, but none ever 

 showed sign of regenerating any excised part. 



Ability to live in isolation.— On the 27th of August, 1900, I 

 took three workers from an apple-core lying by the roadside and 

 segregated them in a Petri cell, from which they were never re- 

 moved. One died February 23, 1902; one died March 1, 1902, 

 and one is still living, September, 1902, the survivor having lived 

 alone more than six months. She busies herself with the inert 

 young that I lend to her and reclaim before they hatch, and she 

 appears to be healthy and happy. She is wholly tame, and 

 evinces no desire to leave her cell when I take off its cover; but 

 she seems to enjoy disporting herself upon my hand, or upon the 

 hand of another person, where she will voluntarily stay for long 

 periods. She appears to have, concerning human hands, unex- 

 plained preferences which do not depend on acquaintance, tem- 

 perature or race. 



Familiarity with the nest-aura does not reconcile aliens. — Two of 

 my small nests,' one containing ants of the C colony, the other 

 containing ants of the G colony, have stood in juxtaposition one 

 year, and have been cleaned weekly with the same appliances, but 



1 The writer is in lier third year of study of this ant. It is the species 

 under consideration in this paper in every case, unless another species is 

 named. 



2 "Further Study of an Ant," Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences 

 of Philadelphia, October, 1901. 



3 "Portable Ant Nests," Biological Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1900. 



