68 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. \\o\. XXIII, 



larvae of the various social insects is often very different in its nature, even 

 in closely related species, the structure of the workers may be extremely 

 uniform and exhibit only slight sjiecific differences. iVmong ants alone v^^e 

 find the larvjie fed with a great variety of substances. Thus the Attii feed 

 their larvte on fungus hypha?, the harvesting species of Pheidole, Pogono- 

 myrmex, etc., on seeds, the Ponerina^ and many Myrmicinfe on pieces of 

 insects, and most Dolichoderinae and Camponotinje supply their young 

 with regurgitated liquid food. According to DahV the larvte of at least 

 one species (Camponotus quadriceps) feed on the pith of plants. The 

 quality of the food itself cannot, therefore, be supposed to have a morpho- 

 genic value. And even if we admit what seems to be very probable, namely, 

 that a salivary secretion — possibly containing an enzyme — may be ad- 

 ministered by some of these ants at least to their younger larvje, the case 

 against the morphogenic effects of qualitative feeding is not materially 

 altered, as we see from the following considerations: 



3. In incipient ant-colonies the queen mother takes no food often for 

 as long a period as eight or nine months, and during all this time is com- 

 pelled to feed her first brood of larvre exclusively on the secretions of her 

 salivary glands. This diet, which is purely qualitative, though very limited 

 in quantity, produces only workers and these of an extremely small size 

 (raicrergates). 



4. In the honey-bees, on the other hand, qualitative feeding, namely 

 with a secretion, the so-called "royal jelly," which according to some authors 

 (Schiemenz) is derived from the salivary glands, according to others (Planta) 

 from the clylific stomach of the nurses, does not produce workers but queens. 

 In this case, however, the food is administered in considerable quantity, 

 since it is not provided by a single starving mother, as in the case of the ants, 

 but by a host of vigorous and well-fed nurses. Although it has been taken 

 for granted that the fertilized egg of the honey-bee becomes a queen as the 

 result of this peculiar diet, the matter appears in a different light when it is 

 considered in connection with von Ihering's recent observations on the 

 stingless bees (Meliponidae) of South America.^ He has shown that in the 

 species of Melipona the cells in which the males, queens, and workers are 

 reared are all of the same size. These cells are provisioned with the same 

 kind of food (honey and pollen) and an egg is laid in each. Thereupon 

 they are sealed up, and although the larvae are not fed from day to day as 

 in the honey-bees, but like those of the solitary bees subsist on stored pro- 

 visions, this uniform treatment nevertheless results in the production of 



1 Das Leben der Ameisen im Bismarck-Archipel, Friedlander u. Sohn, 1901, p. 31. 



2 Biolosie der stachellosen Honlgbienen Brasiliens. Zool. Jahrb., Ahth. f. Syst., XIX, 1903, 

 pp. 179-287, 13 pll., S text-figs. 



