24 



The fact that the large-bodied females of this genus, viz. 

 flavus, niger, alienus, and emarginatus , lay eggs only a few days 

 after fecundation, whereas the temporary social ones, umhratus, 

 mixtus, and fuliginosus, do not lay till the next year, is a priori 

 evidence that the former are self-founding. 



L. flavus. — ^This ant, the most abundant species in this country 

 (single fields sometimes containing hundreds of its grass-covered 

 mounds) is a good example of the normal method, its females, 

 many times larger than the workers and males, being abundantly 

 endowed with the necessary reserve force for a protracted fast. 

 Ordinarily the fertilised female brings up her brood alone, but, 

 as we shall see presently, two or more may do so jointly. 



Ernst showed that this species is self- founding. In October 

 1902 he found at Le Chenois a deälated female under a stone 

 where she had constructed a small cell. No eggs were laid till 

 April 22nd (it is very probable there had been eggs when the 

 ant was found, since, as we have before stated, females of this 

 species lay eggs a few days after fertilisation), and larvae were 

 found on August 22nd and pupœ on October 3rd. It was not 

 until November qth that a pupa hatched, eleven months after 

 the finding of the queen, but the colony had laboured under 

 difiiculties from the commencement, since Ernst did not under- 

 stand the treatment of ants in captivity. 



Crawley in August 1897 found a single deälated female 

 in a small cell under a stone, without brood, at Oddington near 

 Oxford. 



There may be more than one queen in a flavus colony. We 

 have several times found two queens in a single nest. A case 

 of this description may be due to one of two causes — either the 

 founding of the colony by two females in common, or to the 

 acceptance of an additional queen from their own or a strange 

 colony. There is a good deal of evidence in support of both 

 hypotheses. 



FoREL, about 1873, found under a stone at Salève a neat 

 cell occupied by two fertile flavus females without brood. 



Crawley on August 6th, 1904, found four females together 

 under a stone at Oddington, but as there was no brood and no 

 enclosed cell it was probably only a temporary retreat immedi- 

 ately after the marriage-flight and shedding of wings. 



