1906.] Wheeler, Relations of Ants to Plants. 413 



nesting in large grassy hummocks in meadows from Colorado to 

 Illinois, must be determined by renewed observations.^ 



2. THE TENT-BUILDING ANT AND THE PITCHER PLANT. 



While engaged in making the observations on the habits of the 

 tent -building ant {Creinastogaster lineolata) recorded in a former article ^ 

 I came upon another instance of maladaptation very different from 

 that described in the preceding paragraphs. The tent-building ant is 

 one of the most plastic and adaptable of our North Ainerican For- 

 micidae. This is shown both in its wide variability over an extensive 

 geographical range and in its ability to construct, often at a consider- 

 able distance from its nest, beautiful carton or earthen tents over its 

 herds of aphids and coccids. We should expect such an ant to be 

 more than ordinarily skilful in evading or circumventing the wiles 

 of inimical plants. This, however, seems not to be the case. AVhile 

 examining the pitcher-plants (Sarracenia purpurea) in the bogs about 

 Lakehurst, New Jersey, I found the ascidia, or pitchers, in many 

 cases partially filled with the dead reinains of Cremastogaster lineo- 

 lata pilosa, a subspecies which seems to be characteristic of boggy 

 spots in the pine barrens. Undoubtedly thousands of workers of this 

 ant are annually destroyed and consumed by these apparently passive 

 insect-eating plants. 



The extremely interesting devices whereby the plants of the North 

 American genus Sarracenia are able to entrap great numbers of insects, 

 have been described by several botanists, notably by Vogt,-^ Hooker,'* 

 MellichaiTLp,^ Schiinper,'' Zipperer,^ Macfarlane,^ and Meehan.^ 

 Macfarlane, especially, has gone into the subject in considerable 

 detail and has given many figures illustrating the development and 

 structure of the pitchers in all the species of Sarracenia (S. flava, 



' The Occurrence of Formica cinerea Mayr and Formica riifibarbis Fabr. in America Amer. 

 Natur., XXXVI, 1902, pp. 947-052. 



2The Habits of the Tent-building Ant, Cremastogaster lineolata Say. BuU. Am. Mus. Xat. 

 Hist., XXII, 1906, pp. 1-18, pi. i-vi. 



■5 Phvtohistologische. Beitr;ige, II, Die Blatter der Sarracenia purpurea Linn. Sitzber. K. 

 K. Akad. Wien, i86t;, I Bd. pp. 281-300, 2 Taf. 



■•Address to the department of Botany and Zoology. Report 44th Meet. Brit. Assoc. Adv. 

 Sci. Belfast (1874) 1875. pp. 102-116 



s Sarracenia variolaris. Amer. Natural., XI, 1877, pp. 432-43?. 



'> Notizen iiber insectenfressende Pflanzen. Botan. Zeitg., 40 Jahrg., 1882, pp. 226-234, 242-248. 



' Breit^aq; zur Kenntniss der Sarraceniaceen. Munich. 188-. 



8 Observations on Pitchered Insectivorous Plants. Parti, Ann. ^otan., 1889-1800, pp. 253-266, 

 pi. xvii; Part II, ibid., 1893, pp. 403-458, pi. xix-xxi. 



' Sarracenia variolaris. Meehan's Monthly, IV, 1894, p. 1, 2. pis. 



