CHAPTER II 

 ANT QUEENS AND THE FOUNDATION OF FORMICARIES 



IN the former chapter the reader has been given a 

 general view of the life of a queen ant. The subject 

 is of such wide interest, and bears so closely upon the 

 whole economy of ants, that it will now be taken up 

 more in detail, especially with a view to the manner of 

 founding a community. 



Let us begin the history at the point where the young 

 adult females or virgin queens await in their native 

 formicaries the period at which their real life-function 

 is about to begin. Heretofore they and their winged 

 male associates have been beneficiaries in the home 

 nest, wholly dependent upon the workers for food, and 

 for other attentions. They can preen the soft hairs and 

 bristles that clothe their bodies, and otherwise attend to 

 their personal toilet. But they are still subject to the 

 watch and discipline of the worker castes, who are the 

 emmetonian soldiers, policemen, builders, purveyors, 

 nurses, and laborers. 



They have an eye even to their constitutional exercise ; 

 for Huber has told us of certain carpenter-ants, both 

 male and female, that under escort of workers left their 

 arboreal chambers, and from the middle of the afternoon 

 until midnight promenaded the neighboring branches, 

 like a bevy of boarding-school girls on their daily walks 



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