FERTILE WOKKERS. 35 



continually m>ved their antennae caressingly. This 

 sort of attention continued until the queen, escorted by 

 woi'kers, disappeared in one of the galleries. She was 

 entirely adopted, and thereafter was often seen moving 

 freely, or attended by guards, about the nest, at times 

 engaged in attending the larvae and pupae which had 

 been introduced with the workers of the strange colony. 

 The workers were fresh from their own natural home, and 

 the queen had been in an artificial home for a month.' 



In no case, however, when I have put a queen into 

 one of my nests has she been accepted. 



Possibly the reason for the diflFerence may be that 

 the ants on which I experimented had been long living 

 in a republic ; for, I am informed, that if bees have been 

 long without a queen it is impossible to induce them to 

 accept another. 



Moreover, I have found that when I put a queen 

 with a few ants from a strange nest they did not 

 attack her, and by adding others gradually, I succeeded 

 in securing the throne for her. 



It is generally stated that among ants the queens 

 only lay eggs. This, however, is not correct. 



Denny ' and Lesp^s ^ have shown that the workers 

 also are capable of producing eggs ; but the latter as- 

 serted that these eggs never come to maturity. Forel, 

 however, has proved ' that this is not the case, but 



' Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 2nd ser., vol. L 

 « Ann. des Sci. Nat., 18G3. 

 ' Fourmis de la Suisse, p. 329. 



D 2 



