71 



drag the workers about the nest for several days, when those 

 females that had not been removed for experiments began to 

 die. It is noteworthy that it was in every case immediately 

 after fecundation, and the removal of all or all but one of the 

 wings, that the females seized the workers, invariably by the 

 last joint of the flagellum. The grip of the females' mandibles 

 on the antennaî of the workers seemed to paralyse the latter, 

 who made no resistance, and onh' in one or two cases tried to 

 escape. 



We have made several experiments with some of the females 

 obtained in the New Forest and subsequently fertilised, and 

 now give the details. 



Experiment I. — In July Crawley had an old fertile female 

 of Tetramoriitm in a plaster nest with about a dozen workers 

 and a quantit}- of pupae. Both the queen and the workers were 

 from the New Forest, but from difterent nests. The queen was 

 only once or twice attacked, and at the time of the following 

 experiment appeared to have been accepted b\' the strange 

 workers . 



A newly fertilised and deälated female of Aner gates, still 

 holding her captive worker b\' the antennae, was in the after- 

 noon of Juh^ 24th placed in this small Tctramonum nest, ^^'orkers 

 touched her and passed on without molesting either her or 

 the worker. Late the same night the female seemed quite at 

 home among the now more numerous workers and callows. 

 Next day a worker was seen to ]:)ull the female by an antenna, 

 and another was biting her thorax. She was attacked from 

 time to time during the day. Her abdomen was slighth' di>- 

 tended, so that white aj)peared between the segments, and a 

 single egg was adhering to the top of her abdomen (the obese 

 queen in the parent nest was often observed to have eggs stuck 

 on her abdomen). She still held on to her captive worker, who 

 seemed nearly dead. 



At 6.15 p.m. her captive was released, and she herself was 

 held in the jaws of a worker. She was then removed from the 

 nest and found to be dying. 



Experiment II.— On July 24th Donisthorpe placed a 

 fertilised Anergates female with one wing in a nest of Tctramorium 

 with (luccn, taken at Whitsand Bay in Jul\- 1911. The female 



