1 6 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 



external form and internal structure. The ants were alive in the nest 

 when I received it. They were chloroformed before sectioning the 

 nest. I took from the nest about one-fourth pint of adults, pupae 

 and larvae. They were collected in a mass through the chambers 

 within a space four inches in length of the nest. This space is about 

 two-thirds the distance from the lower end. The material composing 

 the cells in this space is lighter in color than the other internal 

 parts. 



"The material used in making the nest seems to be the same as 

 that used by the ant in making its nest under stones, etc. Beside 

 the woody pulp, a microscopic examination seems to reveal also some 

 portions of dried grass. The nest is supported by the branches of 

 the bush; a vine and some stalks of marsh-grass are fastened in it. 

 Upon the outside the material is of a light gray color, much like that 

 of the nest of the white-faced hornet. In the interior it is darker, 

 in some places almost black. Probably the high tides, causing the 

 creek to overflow, forced the ants to build their nest above the high- 

 water mark instead of under stones and within logs." 



In this exceptional instance, as shown by the figure accompanying 

 Professor Atkinson's article, the ants had constructed a large carton 

 nest of the same kind as the tropical species above mentioned. We 

 may regard this occurrence as an interesting case of atavism and as 

 demonstrating that instincts like structures may become latent and 

 manifest themselves with almost pristine intensity after an apparent 

 disappearance during many generations. Such conditions, which are 

 apt to prove embarrassing when the potential aspects of instinct are 

 ignored and only its manifestation as "instinct action" is taken into 

 consideration, lead inevitably to the assumption of "dispositions" 

 in the sense in which this term is used by some modern human 

 psychologists.! 



An explanation of the tents of C. lineolata is to some extent im- 

 plied in the preceding consideration of the carton-building instinct of 

 this species. They may obviously be regarded as small but detached 

 portions of the nest, constructed in a specific environment which at 

 one time, in the possibly not very remote phylogenetic history of the 

 species, led to the building of carton nests. The worker ants, finding 

 themselves detained by their strong appetite for honey dew in ex- 

 posed situations on the stems of plants, build these small succursal 



' These cases of the revival of instincts are particularly suggestive in connection with Hering's 

 view recently elaborated by Semon in his interesting volume "Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip 

 im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens." Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann, 1904. 



