48 
Contrasts between the kelep and the true ants also appear in con- 
nection with the sting. The kelep, which has an effective sting for 
use on other insects, does not make it a weapon for general defense 
against intrusion. The ants, on the other hand, fight each other with 
their mandibles, but many of them sting viciously at any foreign 
object with which they may come in contact. Curiously enough, too, 
many ants in which the sting has become a mere harmless rudiment 
still go through the motions of stinging with as much prompiness 
and apparent gusto as their more effectively armed relatives. The 
decline of the sting among some of the ants may be associated per- 
haps with the fact that they are vegetable feeders. At least, it would 
seem to be an indication of their remoteness from the parasitic groups 
of Hymenoptera. 
HARMLESSNESS OF THE KELEP TO MAN. 
Lest the present recognition of the similarity of the kelep to the 
bees and wasps should lead to another misapprehension, it may be 
well to repeat here the fact that the insect is entirely harmless to 
man. Its sting is used with instinctive promptness to paralyze 
boll weevils and other insects which it undertakes to capture, but 
there seems to be a complete lack of any tendency to defend itself 
by stinging, except when actually caught and held. 
This has been shown to the entire satisfaction of all who have had 
the interest to watch the kelep colonies which were brought to the 
United States in July (1904). The insects have been handled on many 
occasions, and by many different persons, without any threat or 
symptom of stinging, except in the case of two or three young men 
at Victoria, Tex., who had the curiosity to make a test of the injury 
which the insect’s venom could inflict. The result was quite the same 
as we had experienced in Guatemala, a slight and temporary irritation, 
Messrs. Goll and Collins, who recently excavated the nests of about 
40 colonies in Guatemala, were not stung at all, though taking no 
measures to protect themselves. 
That an insect which is so ready and skillful in stinging its prey 
should be so peaceable and harmless in other respects may well appear 
almost incredible, but a similar specialization of instinct is known 
to exist in the domestic honeybee, where the queen has no inclina- 
tion to use her sting except for the purpose of dispatching her rivals. 
a“ But though this sting is always ready to strike, though they make con- 
stant use of it in their fights among themselves, they will never draw it against 
a queen; nor will a queen ever draw hers on a man, an animal, or an ordinary 
bee. She will never unsheath her royal weapon—curved, in scimiter fashion, 
instead of being straight, like that of the ordinary bee—save only in the case 
of her doing battle with an equal—in other words, with a sister queen.”—Maeter- 
