42 



She eventually got under the stone and entered the nest, which 

 contained a small fusca colony. Owing to lack of time, further 

 investigations were impossible. 



The females of F. exsecta are smaller in comparison to their 

 workers than those of F. rufa. They are darker and more like 

 fusca females in general appearance, and Wasmann states they 

 are more readily accepted. Mixed colonies of F. exsecta and 

 F. fusca have been found on various occasions. 



In September 1867, near Apples, Forel found a very small 

 mixed colony which contained typical fusca workers and very 

 small workers of F. exsecto-ruhens. In April 1870 Bugnion gave 

 to Forel typical workers of F. fusca and F. exsecta which he 

 had taken in a mixed colony under the bark of a tree near Lau- 

 sanne, and in the following summer Bugnion found a mixed 

 colony of F. exsecto-pressilabris and F. fusca under a stone at 

 Or monts. 



In October 1906 Wasmann found, at Luxemburg, an F. 

 exsecta-fusca colony in a simple earth-nest of the F. fusca type, 

 containing an F. exsecta female, several hundred F . exsecta and 

 F. fusca workers and pupie of the former. No queen of F. fusca 

 was present in the nest. In 1909 he records that he found three 

 mixed colonies of these two species in the same locality. 



The F. exsecta nests found by Donisthorpe in the Isle of 

 Wight and one part of Aviemore in Scotland, bore resemblance 

 to the ordinary earth type of F. fusca nests, and had probably 

 originated in F. fusca nests ; but those at Bournemouth, where 

 many nests were found together, were built in the usual F. 

 exsecta manner with ling and grass, and probably owed their 

 origin to branch nests, from a parent colony. Cases in point 

 are the enormous colony of F. exsecta recorded by Forel in a 

 clearing in the Forests of Mont Tendre, which consisted of over 

 200 nests which occupied a radius of over 150 metres. Millions 

 of ants circulated in every direction from one to the other ; and 

 a similar colony of F. pressilabris was found near Geneva. 



On May 27th, 1910, Donisthorpe found a nest of F. exsecta, 

 near Bournemouth, at some distance from the nests before 

 mentioned from that locality. It was of the usual F. exsecta 

 type, but quite small. On being examined it proved to contain 

 both F. exsecta and F. fusca workers, the workers of the latter 



