31 



Three times after this A came up to B and bit her, and on the 

 third occasion succeeded in poisoning her. Next day B was 

 dead, and the workers removed her body and that of C into the 

 next chamber. It is noteworthy that neither of the females 

 who were attacked made any attempt to escape into the adjacent 

 chamber, which they might easily have done. This incipient 

 colony is at the time of writing in a flourishing condition, with 

 over a hundred workers and larvée and eggs. 



Five deälated females, of nigcr were also picked up in the 

 Isle of Wight in 191 1, and brought up a few workers by the 

 winter. Three females died owing to the presence of mould, 

 but the survivors have now reared over a dozen workers, and 

 so far are friendly. The workers broke open the earth cell in 



July. 



Mràzek's experiment, though not conclusive, as the females 

 were not actually observed to fight, points to the murder of one 

 female by another. In March 1904 he found two deälated 

 iiiger females in a closed cell under a stone. He put them in a 

 small plaster nest with honey, which they drank. On April nth 

 eggs were laid, and by the beginning of June there were pupae, 

 which started to hatch at the end of July. When there were 

 about thirty workers the females no longer attended to the brood. 

 On returning after an absence from home, he found one female 

 dead and cut in pieces. In this and similar cases where females 

 are found in the autumn and spring without brood, it seems clear 

 that the conditions have been adverse and the females have 

 been compelled to devour all their eggs. Under these circum- 

 stances it is perhaps unlikely that in nature the females would 

 succeed in rearing a colony. 



The remaining species of our British Lasins will be dealt with 

 under " Abnormal Methods" (p. 47). 



Genus Formica. 



F. fusca and its races undoubtedly found their colonics alone. 

 Wasmann in July 1906 discovered at Luxemburg two incipient 

 fusca colonies, one with a queen and six workers, and the other 

 with two queens and six workers, and also a young colony of 

 rufibarbis consisting of a queen with fifty newly-hatched workers. 



