176 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [MAT 5, 



I also found what I at first supposed was the trunk of a dead 

 tree, about four feet high, looking as if coated by the mud ants, 

 but examination showed that it was a column of mud. In this I 

 found a few T. minimufi contesting possession with the mud ants, 

 T. columnaris. I took a piece of the columnar nest and planted 

 in my garden for observation. The whole nest was about four feet 

 high, six inches diameter at top, and about fourteen inches at 

 base. I sawed off a section. The T. minimus were not found 

 inside this column, only on the outside. I am positive there is no 

 connection of septa or galleries between the two kinds of ter- 

 mites. I was hampered in examination of mud nests in the open 

 savanna by the hot air, my umbrella, spectacles, bottles of al- 

 cohol, and eyes blinded with perspiration. I found no queen 

 cell in the mud nest, and the little, undeveloped queens found 

 are tuhite, slender, and without the colored bands on the ab- 

 domen of the Nasutitermes (Eutermes), and were found on 

 the ground, in the hole made in opening the nest. One of them 

 is nine mm. long, the other seven mm., and nearly three mm. 

 diameter through abdomen, and, while of the same general form 

 of the Nasutitermes (Eutermes), are smaller. 



If I should write you all the interesting things I see among 

 the termites, it would read like a Munchausen story, and therefore 

 you only receive from me plain facts of observation. I will write 

 you my experience with a large black ant in my termitarium, 

 which I captured in its nest in my garden with three grubs or 

 larvae. I put it in a vial one and one-half inches long and half an 

 inch wide, without neck, and kept the cork in for thirty minutes. 

 It began to clean the larvae, so I took out the cork and laid the 

 vial horizontally in the bottom of a jar. In ten days she has 

 been seen out only five times ; one of the larvae has passed in- 

 to a pupa, the second is growing, and the third died and was 

 buried or eaten. The ant has laid seven eggs, and is attending 

 them while feeding the larvse, and has nearly filled the mouth of 

 the vial with grains of sand and soil, leaving just space to go in 

 and out, but does not attempt to run away. Whenever I find 

 her out, when approaching with my hand lens, she rushes to her 

 nest, and with her long, elbow-like antennae gently touches each 

 egg, larva, and pupa to see if they are all right. I feed her on 

 mosquitoes, termites and their eggs; and this noon I saw her 

 holding one of the latter up to the mouth of the larva, but as it 

 did not take it she laid it down within its reach. A hen brood- 

 ing its young never showed more anxiety than does this ant in 

 watching hers. If I touch the glass gently, the tips of her an- 

 tennae will touch each one to see if any injury has been done. I 

 never find these ants in company with others of their species. 

 Are they not all a fascinating study ? 



