36 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 



formation adopted by the great majority of female ants. In his re- 

 markable book ^ published nearly a century ago, he writes (ppi i i-i 13) : 



"As soon as they [the female ants] have dropped their wings, they 

 are seen running about over the ground in search of a lair. It would 

 be difficult indeed to follow them through their devious courses and 

 detours in the midst of fields and lawns. Although I have failed to see 

 them establish themselves, I have nevertheless convinced myself, after 

 some trials, that these females, which were required to do no labor in 

 the parental formicaries, and seemed incapable of initiative, become, 

 nevertheless, when inspired by maternal affection and the need of em- 

 ploying all their faculties, industrious and care for their young quite as 

 well as do the workers. I confined several fertilized females in a box 

 full of light, damp earth. They knew how to dig galleries, which they 

 inhabited either singly or in common ; they laid and cared for their eggs, 

 and notwithstanding the inconvenience of being unable to regulate the 

 temperature of their dwelling, they reared some of the eggs, which be- 

 came larvae of considerable size but perished through my negligence. 



"Hereupon I assembled some other females in a similar apparatus 

 and gave them some worker pupae for the purpose of ascertaining 

 whether their instinct would lead them to open the cocoons; and al- 

 though these females were virgins and still bore wings, they worked to 

 such good purpose that on the following morning I found three workers 

 in their midst. A few days later I surprised them in the act of liber- 

 ating other workers from their final envelope ; in this they behaved like 

 workers and seemed not to be embarrassed by the occupation in which 

 they were engaged for the first time. 



"It is evident, therefore, that the females are able, when necessary, 

 to rear a family quite by thernselves. -If I endeavored to convince my- 

 self of this fact by still more positive proofs, it was less for the purpose 

 of dispelling all my doubts on this matter, than to satisfy my curiosity 

 concerning the composition of these incipient formicaries. After long 

 search I succeeded in discovering the hiding place of these females and 

 the nascent colonies which they had established. These were situated 

 at a slight depth in the soil. There were a few workers with their 

 mother and some larvae which they were feeding. I have seen two ex- 

 amples of such recently established formicaries. Then, too, one of my 

 friends [M. Perrot of Neufchatel, an excellent naturalist] whose ob- 

 servations are worthy of implicit confidence, one da}'' discovered, in a 

 small subterranean cavity, a female ant living alone with four pupae, 

 for which she appeared to be caring." 



' Recherches sur les Moeurs des Fourmis Indigenes. Paris and Geneva, 1810. 



