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



stick, straw, and the hard black pellets of earth, which are thrown up 

 by the earthworms, until there is no way visible for them to enter; and 

 the little litter is so ingeniously placed, that it has more the appear- 

 ance of having been drifted together by the wind than to have been 

 the work of design. 



"In about a year and a half, when the numbers of the community 

 have greatly increased, and they feel able to sustain themselves among 

 the surrounding nations, they throw off their concealment, clear 

 away the grass, herbage, and other litter to the distance of 3 or 4 feet 

 around the entrance of their city, organize an efificient police, and, 

 thus established, proclaim themselves an independent city," etc. 



Essentially the same account was published by Lincecum in 1874 

 in another article^ and is repeated in McCook's larger work on the 

 Texan agricultural ant (pp. 146 etseq.).'^ 



My own observations on this same ant confirm Lincecum's in every 

 important detail, except that I have never seen the female return to 

 the surface after she had excavated her burrow. She closes it behind 

 her and, thus shut off from the world, devotes herself to bringing up 

 her brood, like the females of most ants. I am glad to record my 

 nearly complete agreement with Lincecum in this matter because I 

 am unable to accept his account of some of the other instincts of 

 Pogonom-yrmex. ^ 



The first to witness the founding of a colony in an artificial nest, 

 that is, under conditions accurately controlled, was Sir John Lubbock. 

 His account, originally published in 1879, ^ is reproduced in the 

 various editions of his well-known book on ants, bees, and wasps. On 

 Aug, 14, 1876, he isolated two pairs of Myrmica ruginodis and suc- 

 ceeded in keeping them in a perfectly healthy condition through the 

 winter. The males died during the following April and Ma3^ The 

 females laid during the latter part of April. Some of the young had 

 pupated by the first of July and the firstling workers appeared and 

 began to care for the remainder of the brood by the end of that month 

 and the first week in August. This demonstrated, as Lubbock said, 

 "that the queens of Myrmica ruginodis have the instinct of bringing 

 up larvae and the power of founding communities." 



In 1883 McCook^ published a number of careful observations by 



' The Agricultural Ant. Am. Nat., Vol. VII, 1874, No 9, pp. 514, 51s.. 



2 The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant from Texas. Philadelphia, 1879. 



■5 See my paper: A New Agricultural Ant from Texas, with Remarks on the Known North 

 American Species. Am. Nat., Vol. XXXVI, Feb., 1902, pp. 91 et seq. 



■» Observations on Ants, Bees, and Wasps. Part V, Ants. Journ. Linn. See, Vol. XIV, 

 1879 pp. 265-290. 



5 How a Carpenter Ant Founds a Colony. Free. Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., Vol. XXIV, 18S3. 

 P- 303- 



