37 



myrmecologists, in particular Wheeler and Wasmaxn, to 

 investigate the matter with great care. The result of their 

 observations and experiments leaves no doubt that females of 

 these ants are unable to found colonies alone. 



Colonies of F. rufa, and probably other species, often contain 

 a large number of queens. For instance, in a single nest at 

 Porlock, which we dug up in A} lil Kjii, were considerably 

 over one hundred queens, and as we only investigated part of 

 the nest, the number must have been much greater. Other 

 nests in the same localit}', and at Weybridge and elsewhere, 

 contained a similar number of females, and though an occasional 

 nest may be found in which it is difficult to detect a queen, the 

 general rule is for nests of this species to contain a good many. 

 Wasmann has likewise recorded the presence of more than 

 sixty queens in nests of F. rufa at Limburg. This condition is 

 evidently brought about by the readmission of deälated females 

 after the marriage-flight into the parent colony. 



Colonies which keep up their supplies of queens in this way 

 may last for very long periods. A large nest of pratensis has 

 been observed by Forel for over fifty years, Donisthorpe has 

 known a nest of J^. rufa at Weybridge for twenty years, and 

 there is the case of a nest of the same species that Darwin's 

 informant, a man of eighty, had remembered as a bo}-. 



Since a colony may consist of several nests, each containing 

 queens, and some eventualh' becoming separate colonies, though 

 not hostile to the parent one, fertile females from one nest may 

 readily be received into another some distance awa}'. 



Crawley, in 1904, took queens from nests in a valley at 

 Porlock where there were a large number of colonies, and found 

 them accepted in other nests there. This we think points to a 

 common origin of all the nests in a locality, since we have found 

 that queens of F. rufa from distant parts of the country were 

 alwa\'s killed by the strange colonies to which they were intro- 

 duced. However, as Wasmann found seven queens in a nest 

 of pratensis, one of which was a rufa and another a truncicolo- 

 Pratensis, the remaining five being pme prate)isis, these nearly 

 allied races may sometimes accept queens from each other's 

 nests. 



Colonies often arise by the building of a branch nest, as 



