33 



He concluded that it was formed by the adoption of females 

 from strange colonies, as the colour and markings of the females 

 were very different, many belonging to the brightly coloured 

 subspecies rufibarbis. 



Keys found that females and workers of fusco-rufibarbis 

 from different colonies in the same locality (Whitsand Bay, 

 Cornwall) agreed perfectly well together. This points to the 

 " recognition method " being inherited in a common stock. 

 Under F. rufa will be found experiments which point to a similar 

 conclusion. 



DoNisTHORPE in April 1907 found that a female of fusca 

 from Bradgate Park was accepted by some workers of fiisco- 

 rufibarbis from Whitsand Bay, and also that several difterent 

 lots of workers of fusco-rufibarbis from Whitsand Bay in 1909 

 voluntarily mingled and formed a single colony. Crawley, 

 on October 7th, 1909, introduced a worker of F. subscricea from 

 the united States to a female and worker of F. fusca from England. 

 The subscricea killed the worker, but was friendly with the female. 

 Three days later thirteen more subscricea workers were intro- 

 duced, and all were friendly with the queen. This colony is still 

 in existence this year, and a few subscricea workers still remain, 

 though there is a large number of fusca workers reared from eggs 

 laid by the queen. 



On the other hand the acceptance of strange females by 

 fusca nests, and its races, possessing females is far from being 

 the general rule. 



Some years ago Crawley made several experiments with 

 fusca queens and colonies of fusca, both with and without queens, 

 in all of which the strange females were attacked. In April 

 1909 he introduced a queen of fusca from Wellington College 

 to some workers of glebaria from the New Forest, when the 

 female was at once attacked. Three days later the same queen 

 was placed in a nest of fusca containing workers, and she was 

 again attacked, though the nest came from the same locality 

 as the female. Again, on May 22nd he put the same queen 

 into another small nest of fusca with a queen, also from Welling- 

 ton College, and she was killed. On July 15th, 1911, he put a 

 young deälated female of fusca from Devon into a nest of fusca 

 from another part of the county, which contained a female, 

 5 



