x Mee oa LN VOY SE ODY 241 
July 21. A sad change came over the colony 
to-day. I noticed some of the workers butting one 
- another this morning. This evening these quarrel- 
some spirits had multiplied and had thrown the 
orderly and contented colony into confusion and 
anarchy. They rushed madly over the comb, 
attacking and pushing one another with great 
vehemence, and half their comrades were on the 
floor idle and drowsy. In the hope of restoring 
order I removed five of the worst, but still the re- 
maining ones could not agree. Looking at the 
queen I noticed that she was taking no interest in 
anything around her but had fallen into a kind of 
stupor. When I tried to arouse her she trembled, 
and she would not take food. Evidently she was 
ailing. A worker seized one of her hind legs in her 
jaws and began pulling it, another tugged at one of 
her antenne, and a third caught hold of her tongue 
and tried to drag her along by it. She did not 
seem to mind this rough treatment, but slowly 
cleaned her antenna with her foreleg when the 
worker let it go. Probably she was only half con- 
scious. Evidently the object of the workers in 
seizing her was not to attack her but to remove 
her; they seemed to have decided that she was 
useless and going to die. 
The sickness of the queen was, in fact, the cause 
of the quarrelling. In every nest under my ob- 
servation that has had the misfortune to lose its 
queen, including one of /atrezllellus and another of 
muscorum, the workers quarrelled in the same ‘way, 
R 
