16 
stalk the plants are solitary; 1f there are numerous buds and branches 
from roots or underground stems a cluster is formed and the plant 
is said to have a cespitose habit, depending upon the different method 
of reproduction. Similarly with the ants and the keleps the former 
have their colonies remote and hostile, the latter adjacent and 
friendly, or at least tolerant of each other. And though these dif- 
ferences might at first seem slight and insignificant, they result, in 
reality, from a fundamentally distinct system of social organization. 
It is not only a regular and normal condition for ant colonies to 
be solitary and remote from each other, but there is a provision of 
mutual hostility which prevents the establishment of closely adja- 
cent communities. The keleps, on the contrary, are social not only 
to the extent of forming colonies like the ants, but they are social to 
the second degree, as it were, in that the breeding habits of the in- 
sects provide for the normal existence of closely adjacent communi- 
ties. Solitary kelep colonies would be as abnormal as closely adja- 
cent ant colonies and as clearly at a disadvantage. Adjacent ant 
colonies might suffer for food, while a solitary kelep colony might 
meet extinction through inbreeding if the visits of males from other 
nests were excluded. 
MALES CONTINUOUSLY PRESENT. 
Winged males were found in the nests in about the same numbers 
in November asin June. They appear to be regular inhabitants and 
are received by all colonies with apparent indifference. They are 
agile, active insects and could readily pass from one colony to an- 
other, thus providing cross-fertilization without annual swarming. 
Males are not present in all the nests, and the number varied from 
1 to 7 or 8, a diversity itself strongly indicative of the absence of the 
annual emergence, even of the males, at any stated time.¢”| The num- 
ber of males had also no apparent relation to the number of females. 
When the nests were opened in Guatemala the males often 
attempted to escape by running rapidly away, but did not take to 
wing, although Mr. Lewton informs me that some of those brought 
to Texas showed their ability to fly. They are, however, so active and 
fleet of foot that they could pass readily from one colony to another 
of the closely adjacent nests even without flying. Wingless males are 
known in some of the species of Ponera, and also in certain parasitic 
ants. 
a41n Guatemala in the spring the number of males raised by some of the col- 
onies was found to be much greater. Mr. Goll counted about 40 in one nest. 
Messrs. Kinsler and McLachlan saw numerous males at large in the cotton fields 
and observed, further, that they are often caught by the workers and carried 
down into the nests. 
