27 



two incipient colonies in cells under stones, one a niger female 

 with a few larvie and some very small neuters, and the other 

 an emarginatus female, with larvie. The latter was taken and 

 installed in a Lubbock nest. The first larva pupated on June 21st, 

 and on July 12th the first pupa hatched, the female assisting the 

 callow to remove its pupal skin. Another emerged the next 

 day, and others followed in due course. This colony was brought 

 to England, where it flourished till the summer of 1907, when 

 the ants were killed, owing to the nest having been left in the 

 sun too long. The emarginatus workers readily accepted English 

 niger pupaî, and at the time of its destruction the colony con- 

 sisted of about equal numbers of emarginatus and niger workers. 



Nests of niger will receive and hatch both worker and female 

 pupae of L. alienus and vice versa, larvie even being accepted in 

 some instances. 



On October 28th, 1908, Donisthorpe found numerous 

 isolated females of niger, in cells under stones, and in crevices, 

 at Luccombe Chine, Isle of Wight. In one instance two females 

 were in the same cell with a batch of eggs. When recording 

 the latter case, he called attention to Wheeler's discovery of 

 two brevicornis females mentioned above. As we shall presently 

 see, it is not an uncommon thing for two or more nigor females 

 to combine in starting a colony. 



Turning to cases of females taken without brood bringing 

 up their families in captivity, we find J.vnkt in April 1893 iso- 

 lated an old queen from a nest of alienus. This queen, who was 

 supplied with food (since she was past the age when a female 

 can subsist on her body-fat and wing-muscles, as Janet showed), 

 laid eggs soon after her isolation, and reared tw^elve larvœ and 

 a pupa in sixty-one days, and five pupœ and one worker in 102 

 days. The same writer mentions that females of niger, taken 

 after the marriage-flight in August 1904 and kept in captivity, 

 brought up workers by the first days of October. 



Von Buttel-Reepen took two deälated niger females after 

 the marriage-flight on July 22nd, 1903, and placed them in a 

 glass nest with earth, in which they dug two separate holes and 

 laid eggs by the middle of August. About August 20th one 

 female broke into the cell of the other, brought her eggs, and 

 settled with her. The two females henceforward lived together 



