56 On the Habits of Ants. 



Under these circumstances, I made various experiments in order 

 if possible to solve the question. For instance, I took an old fertile 

 queen from a nest of Lasius flavus, and put her to another nest of 

 the same species. The workerp became very excited and killed her. 



I repeated the experiment, with the same result, more than once. 



I concluded then, that, at any rate in the case of Lasius flavus , 

 the workers will not adopt an old queen from another nest. 



The following however shews that whether or not ants* nests 

 sometimes originate in the two former modes or not, at any rate in 

 some cases, isolated queen ants are capable of giving origin to a new 

 community. On the 14th August, 1876, I isolated two pairs of 

 Myrmica ruginodis which I found flying in my garden. I placed 

 them with damp earth, food, and water, and they continued perfectly 

 healthy through the winter. In April, however, one of the 

 males died, and the second in the middle of May. The first eggs 

 were laid between the 12th and 23rd April. They began to hatch 

 the first week in June, and the first turned into a chrysalis on the 

 27th ; a second on the 30th ; a third on the 1st of July, when there 

 were also seven larva3 and two eggs. On the 8th there was another 

 egg. On the 8th July a fourth larva had turned into a pupa. On 

 the 11th July I found there were six eggs, and on the 14th, about ten. 

 On the 15th one of the pupae began to turn brown; and the eggs 

 were about fifteen in number. On the 15th a second pupa began to 

 turn brown. On the 21st a fifth larva had turned into a pupa, and 

 there were about twenty eggs. On the 22nd July the first worker 

 emerged, and a sixth larva had changed. On the 25th I observed 

 the young worker carrying the larvse about when I looked into the 

 nest. A second worker was coming out. On July 28th a third 

 worker emerged,and a fourth on the 5th August. The eggs appeared 

 less numerous, some having probably been devoured. 



This experiment shows that the queens of Myrmica ruginodis have 

 the instinct of bringing up larvoe and the power of founding com- 

 munities. 



The workers remained about six weeks in the egg, a month in 

 the state of larva, and 25 — 27 days as pupae. 



To determine if possible whether the ants have the power of 



