1906.] Wheeler, Founding of Colonies by Queen Ants. 85 



to spray her victim with formic acid. The worker finally escaped. The others 

 seemed to be much afraid of the female and fled whenever she approached. 

 She did not seem to be at all interested either in them or their brood, but settled 

 down on a lump of sugar and began to lick it eagerly. July 18, 7 a.m., the 

 female was lying dead but unmutilated some distance from the workers and 

 brood. Six of the workers were still living. 



This unsatisfactory experiment proves little more than that the 

 subintegra, like the rubicunda females, resent the attacks of subsericea 

 workers. It throws no light on the method of colony formation un- 

 less, perhaps, the caressing behavior of the workers in the early part 

 of the experiment may be taken to indicate amicable adoption of these 

 females by feeble colonies of subsericea. 



8. Formica sanguinea aserva Forel. 



Of what I take to be this ant I have found only two colonies at 

 Colebrook, Connecticut. These were about a mile apart and each was 

 in a large prostrate log. The galleries besides permeating the wood 

 extended into the soil, in one case to a distance of about 8 ft., where 

 they terminated in another nest under a large stone. Although there 

 were several hundred large workers in each of these colonies I failed 

 to find more than 5 or 6 subsericea slaves in either of them. Exactly 

 the same condition was observed in one of these colonies during the 

 summer of 1904. Neither colony was very large, not nearly as large 

 as the rubicunda colony from which the females were taken for the ex- 

 periments above recorded. That one of them was still in its prime 

 was shown by the great number of female cocoons which I took from 

 it during July. These were kept in an artificial nest with several 

 workers till they had hatched and matured. The workers, and es- 

 pecially the females, have the head and thorax dark brown instead of 

 blood red as in the common forms of sanguinea. In many of the fe- 

 males the head is almost or quite black. At first sight the ant re- 

 sembles F. pergandei Emery but is much more robust, the head is 

 broader and the petiole has an acute instead of a blunt border. The 

 workers vary much in size and the females are smaller than those of 

 the typical rubicunda, but somewhat larger than those of subintegra. 

 F. aserva seems to be a distinct and constant form and to be widely 

 distributed in New England. Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson has recent- 

 ly sent me a couple of dealated females taken on the summit of Mount 

 Washington and another from Franconia, New Hampshire. 



Four experiments with fine mature females of this subspecies placed 

 with a few workers of subsericea all gave unsatisfactory results, like 

 the following: 



