HYMENOPTERA — FORMICID&. 925 
taking any part in the transport of the food: on disturbing the route 
and killing some of the ants, these individuals hastened to the spot, 
alarming the others, but gave themselves no concern with their dead 
companions: when order was restored, the aperture was observed to 
be guarded by nine of these individuals.* 
Independent of the difference of habits in these two kinds of neuters, 
and of the modifications in their structure according therewith, their 
development is especially interesting as connected with that of the 
ordinary neuters. We can, it is true,as yet only employ analogy in 
considering the subject; but as we know that the neuter bee is pro- 
duced from ordinary female eggs, the loss of certain characteristics 
taking place during its development, which the worker bees have the 
power to prevent, and to restore the larva, which had been destined for 
an imperfect female (or neuter), to its original normal character, —so 
in the ant, we may consider not only that the neuter is a modified 
female, but further, that the inhabitants of the nest have the instinct so 
to modify the circumstances producing this state of imperfection, that 
some neuters shall exhibit characters at variance with those of the 
common kind. It is in the consideration that such a power is pos 
sessed by the inhabitants, of thus modifying the larvee produced from 
female eggs into three different kinds of individuals, that I find a con- 
firmation of the opinion which I expressed in a preceding page, relative 
to the development of the different kinds of individuals composing 
the community of the white ants. 
The transformations of Myrmica rubra have been carefully traced 
by Swammerdam (Book of Nature, pl. 16.); De Geer has also given 
very ample details and figures of the various states of different 
species of Formica and Myrmica, especially of F. rufa and M. rubra. 
(Meém. tom. ii. pl. 41—43.) The larve have the appearance of small 
white grubs or worms, destitute of feet; they are short, thick, and 
somewhat conical, being narrowest towards the head, which is bent 
* M. Wesmael has just forwarded to me his notice of a singular Mexican ant, 
{(Myrmecocystus Mexicanus), in which the neuters exhibit two still more remarkable 
modifications of form, some being of the ordinary form of neuter Formic, whilst 
in the others the abdomen is swollen into an immense subdiaphanous sphere, produced 
by the distension of the membrane connecting the abdominal segments. According 
to the notes of the discoverer of this species, and the observations of M. Wesmael 
in support thereof, the latter individuals do not quit the nest, are almost inactive, 
and are occupied only in elaborating a kind of honey, which they subsequently dis- 
charge into cells analogous to those of the hive. (Bull. Acad, Roy. Bruxell. tom. v. 
1h Ptic(als)) 
VOL. Il, Q 
