28 



and heaped their eggs in one bunch. The first larva appeared 

 one month after the eggs were laid, twenty-four in all hatching. 

 After eight months some larvae pupated, and the first worker 

 appeared about a year after the females were fertilised. After 

 five workers had hatched, the females ceased to look after the 

 brood. On August 5th the two females commenced to fight, 

 the workers attacking the female that was getting the worst 

 of the combat. This female died the next day, leaving the 

 colony with a single queen. 



SouTHCOMBE took some newly-fertilised females of L. niger 

 in July 1905, and offered some to wild nests, and others to a 

 captive queenless colony. In every case the females were torn 

 to pieces, the queenless nest in particular showing great ferocity 

 towards the strange females. (This is important in connection 

 with the acceptance of females of L. imibratus by L. niger queen- 

 less colonies, as will be seen later.) 



Others, placed in boxes, burrowed into damp earth, but by 

 next spring only two remained. Southcombe suggests that the 

 others had been killed. On September nth there were two 

 workers. 



Though ignorant of these experiments, Crawley was led to 

 the same conclusion, viz. that sister females of niger, who have 

 combined to bring up their family, end by fighting till only one 

 remains, by a series of observations extending over some years. 

 It is a remarkable fact that colonies of this ant are very rarely 

 found with more than one queen ; indeed it is not often that 

 one succeeds in finding even a single queen. Donisthorpe has 

 never found two queens in one nest, and Crawley has only 

 once done so, in August 1895, when part of a niger nest was 

 taken one day with one queen and the remainder on the next 

 with the other queen. The new workers and the second female 

 were received amicably, but later in the day the second female 

 was dragged out of the nest and left in the corner of the box. 

 She was not attacked or harmed in any way. Colonies of this 

 species were always found very hostile to strange fertile females, 

 whether the colonies possessed queens of their own or not. On 

 July 20 th, 1 91 1, having picked up some deälated females after 

 a marriage-ñight at Sea View, Isle of Wight, Crawley placed 

 three in a small box together. They jointly excavated a cell 



