1906.] Wheeler, Founding of Colonies by Queen Ants. 61 



The views of the phylogenetic origin of slavery advanced by Was- 

 mann and myself almost simultaneously ^ suggested some experiments 

 to ascertain whether there is any tendency for adult consocians colo- 

 nies to seize the larvae and pupae of incerta for the purpose of eating them 

 or rearing them as auxiliaries. In nature there is absolutely nothing 

 to indicate that these two species ever form mixed colonies except 

 under the conditions already described in this and my previous paper, 

 although colonies of both species were sometimes found verv close 

 together; often, indeed, in the same stone-pile. The two following 

 experiments certainly show an unusually pronounced aversion on the 

 part of either species to adopting the young of the other. 



Experiment ij. June 28 a number of cocoons and larvae from a large con- 

 socians colony were placed in the light chamber of a nest containing about 

 twenty incerta workers with a consocians female that they had adopted. The 

 ants removed the larvae to the dark chamber, but left the cocoons untouched and 

 exposed to the light for eight days till I removed them from the nest. The 

 consocians larvae were gradually eaten. 



Experiment 14. June 30 one hundred incerta cocoons and 16 larvae were 

 placed in the light chamber of a nest containing a number of consocians workers. 

 The larvae and thirteen cocoons were slowly taken into the dark chamber, the 

 remaining cocoons were ignored. The larvae were eaten and the cocoons that 

 had been carried away were restored to the light chamber. None of the in- 

 certa young hatched, and had to be removed when the nest was cleaned five days 

 later. 



A point on which I have been unable to throw much light during the 

 past summer is the emancipation of the young consocians colony from 

 the colony of incerta by which it has been reared. That this eman- 

 cipation takes place by the gradual and natural death of the incerta 

 workers rather than by the sudden emigration en bloc of the consocians 

 is indicated by the following observation, which is similar to those made 

 on nests No. 15 and 16 of my former paper. July 16 I found under a 

 large stone on the eastern slope of Mt. Pisgah a small pure colony of 

 consocians comprising about fifty workers, nearly all of small stature, 

 a few nearly full grown and three packets of young larvae and a fine 

 female. The nest architecture, however, was unmistakably of the pure 

 incerta type although no workers of this species were present. There 

 could be no doubt that this represented a consocians colony in its 

 second or third 3^ear. It corresponded exactly with the truncicola- 

 fusca nest found by Wasmann during March, 1905. 



' An Interpretation of the Slave-making Instincts of Ants. Ursprung und Entwickelung 

 der Sklaverei bei den Ameisen. Biol. Centralbl., 15 Feb. bis i Mai, 1905, p. 291. 



