342 Mr. C. F, M. Swynnerton's Experiments 



had come into contact with it), and, after examining it, 

 picked it up and carried it along with the column to the 

 station ahead. I now put down close beside each other 

 ten punctured eggs of A. acara, already turning purphsh 

 brown from incubation. My putting down so many in 

 quick succession disturbed that portion of the column, 

 and there was a very shght movement out in my direction, 

 during which a number of ants came into contact with 

 Acraea eggs and inspected them, in every case briefly and 

 with rejection following. Two or three of them now set 

 to work and placed small pieces of earth on top of the eggs, 

 a good-sized piece of dry grass-blade crowning all. This 

 has only been done in my previous experience to the most 

 highly unacceptable of prey, and it constituted, I believe, 

 the best possible evidence of the ants' definite repugnance 

 to the eggs. After they had been thus branded, the eggs, 

 though still visible to myself, were no longer, so far as I 

 saw, the subject of examination. About this time the 

 green C. ethalion egg found a carrier. Rather earlier in 

 the experiment the P. demodociis egg was taken up, though 

 lying outside the column, by an exceptionally small ant. 

 The nearest sentry at once came up and inspected, and 

 before the small ant finally got wtII away the egg twice 

 or thrice became the object of inspection for three or four 

 ants at a time ; but she finally went off wdth it with the 

 column. 



I now left for half an hour. On my return things Avere 

 much as I had left them, and none of the Acraea eggs had 

 been moved. I decided once more to test the view that 

 it was merely the small size of the eggs that was against 

 them. I accordingly cut up two house-flies {Musca 

 domestica) into fragments not larger than a Papilio egg 

 (for example, the two eyes each constituted a different 

 offering), and placed them in and near the run. Each 

 piece at once became the prey of several ants, not merely 

 of perhaps the fortieth chance passer-by as in the case of 

 the accepted eggs, and all Avere quickly carried off. I 

 added, each separately, the two eyes of a $ ^. caldarena, 

 and these Avere also taken. I then extracted its eggs 

 (there were not very many) and laid them down as three 

 or four little separate masses. The ants swarmed over 

 them as over the previous offerings, but very speedily 

 desisted and quickly covered them with small scraps of 

 earth, after which they were pers'stently neglected. I 



