TAPINOMA. 183 



the reception of females into the parent nest after the marriage 

 flight, or the joining together of several females to found their 

 colony. Sometimes however, as pointed out by Forel 19 , virgin 

 females lose their wings without leaving the nest, and Schenck 

 even suggested that the winged females did not leave the nest at 

 all for the marriage flight 5 . 



Judging from the size of the female, it is highly probable that 

 they can found a colony without the aid of any workers. 



Males and winged females are to be found in the nests in June, 

 and generally occur in the same nest. In the mound nest before 

 mentioned which I discovered in the New Forest on June 23rd, 

 1913 the nest having been traced by carefully watching the workers 

 in the neighbourhood, only a few being out as the day was cold and 

 cloudy very many winged females, but only a few males, were 

 present ; it also contained two dealated females, a large number 

 of workers, male, female, and worker pupae, and some larvae 44 . 



The marriage flight takes place in June, though in cold years it 

 is later, occurring in July. Forel saw males and winged females 

 leave a nest at Zurich on June 14th, 1868, and he states that a 

 second generation, of males only, is sometimes produced in 

 September 19 . The male being about as large as the female, he is 

 not carried in the air by the latter during the marriage flight. 



The eggs are laid during the first warm days of spring, and the 

 sex pupae appear in the nests in May and June. 



I have kept several observation nests of this ant, but they have 

 never been very successful the ants in a colony without a queen 

 taken at Woking on May 9th, 1909, devoured all their larvae and 

 pupae, and also eggs laid by one of the workers, although plenty of 

 food (honey, caterpillars, and pupae of other ants) was given to 

 them 37 another colony containing a dealated female taken at 

 Woking on May 18th, 1911, behaved in precisely the same manner 

 a third colony, found under a stone on a bank in the same locality 

 on May 12th, 1912, contained three queens and a number of male 

 and female pupae. In spite of the fact that the ants were supplied 

 with plenty of food, the workers devoured all the sex pupae ; workers 

 however were reared, and the colony was kept for some time 43 I 

 now possess a colony in captivity, part of the inhabitants of the 

 New Forest mound nest, consisting of the two dealated females 

 and a number of workers. Very few deaths have occurred and all 

 the ants are in good health, but eggs laid by the queens from time 

 to time always disappear. 



Forel also records that the male and female pupae in a colony he 

 had in captivity were all devoured by the workers 18 . Dr. Ernst, 

 on the other hand, tells me he has experienced no difficulty in 

 keeping this species in confinement. 



Lord Avebury published a figure of one of his ant-cases contain- 

 ing Tapinoma in captivity, in which the earth can be seen to have 



