ANT QUEENS 



the parent nest, to which none of the outgoers appear 

 to return of their own motion. Nor, intleed, have they 

 the power or abihty to do so. In this respect there is 

 a wide difference between winged ants and their cousins 

 the bees and wasps. With the latter, wings are essential 

 to the common life of hive or nest, and are instruments 

 of transit to and fro on communal errands. They there- 

 fore have the gift of locating the home and returning to 

 it on wings. But ants are given wings simply for pre- 

 serving the species, and these organs of flight are used 

 for that alone. This includes the ability to bear the 

 female to a fitting spot wherein to found a new com- 

 munity. She escapes from the hurly-burly, and sees 

 her home nest no more. 



As for the males, their life-mission ends with or soon 

 after the marriage day, and nothing in nature seems to 

 be kindly concerned about them. They are waste mat- 

 ter in the world of life; like Falstaff's recruits, mere 

 "food for powder"; that is, prey for ant-destroying 

 creatures, or flotsam and jetsam before the undula- 

 tions of winds which drive their dry carcasses to and 

 fro. 



Sometimes there is more or less uncertainty in an ant 

 community as to the exact period for the marriage 

 flight. At least, a difference of opinion would seem to 

 arise between the ruling caste and the winged depend- 

 ents. On and near the grounds of Mrs. Mary Treat at 

 Vineland, New Jersey, were some nests of the Sanguine 

 slave-makers (Formica sanguinea), in which I became 

 much interested during several visits to that lady, during 

 which we jointly studied the manners of several species. 

 The winged forms began to emerge about the middle of 

 June, and three days thereafter the interior of the glazed 



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