I02 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol XXII, 



presence of the undefended brood would arouse her philoprogenitive 

 cravings. These suppositions are worth testing by specially devised 

 experiments. The behavior of the queens of the rufa and exsecta 

 groups obviously constitutes a striking exception to these statements, 

 since some of these in my experiments failed to resent the hostile 

 tweaking and spraying with which they were received by the workers. 

 It is probable, however, that in these species the instincts of self- 

 defence are latent, or rather adaptively inhibited in the presence of 

 workers of the host species. Through founding colonies with the aid 

 of adult workers these females have become so completely socialized 

 as to have lost nearly all hostile initiative. 



It is not surprising to find that the psychologist and physiologist 

 have followed the ethologist in concentrating their attention on the 

 worker to the neglect of the female ant. The workers are, of course, 

 more abundant, much simpler and more responsive to certain stimuli. 

 The female ant, however, as the epitome of the species, not only pre- 

 sents a fresher and more extensive field for the study of formicid 

 instincts, but one to which we must more and more resort in tracing 

 the worker instincts back to their origins and meanings. While 

 worker ants undoubtedly can and often do reproduce, and are there- 

 fore able to transmit their characters to the species as a whole, at 

 least through male offspring, it is nevertheless certain that the specific 

 characters are commonly and often exclusively transmitted by the 

 queens. 



The taxonomist, like the physiologist and psychologist, has unduly 

 stressed the importance of worker ants and for the same reasons, namely 

 that they are more abundant and often, indeed, the only procurable 

 specimens of a species. As myrmecography progresses, however, the 

 specific and generic characters will certainly be drawn more and more 

 from the males and females and less from workers and soldiers. It is 

 evident that the same rule will apply to the termites, as Sjostedt ^ and 

 Desneux 2 have shown in their opposition to Wasmann's tendency to 

 establish genera on the characters of soldiers. 



The results of ethological study should be an abiding source of 

 suggestion to the comparative physiologist and psychologist. Not 

 only is such suggestion one of the greatest contributions of ethology, 

 but this science should itself continually welcome and utilize the re- 

 sults of physiology and psychology. In this connection the experi- 

 ments on F. consocians and rubicunda, showing that the phototropism 



1 Monographie der Termiten Afrikas. K. Svensk, Akad. Handl., XXIV., 4. Stockholm, 1900. 



2 Remarques Critiques sur la Division Systematique des Tennitides. Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. 

 XLVIII, 1904, pp. 372-378. 



