258 BRITISH ANTS. 



first, because he had found some of the North American allies of 

 F. rufa (F. consocians, microgyna, dakotensis, exsectoides, etc.) to be 

 temporary parasites on F. incerta and subsericea ; secondly, 

 because Forel and Wasmann had recorded the occurrence of a 

 few small, mixed colonies of fusca with allies of rufa (F. pratensis, 

 truncicola, exsecta, and pressilabris) ; and thirdly, because, notwith- 

 standing the abundance of F. rufa in many parts of Europe, no 

 one had ever seen one of its females in the act of establishing a 

 colony independently. 



His prophecy has since been fully justified, both by discoveries 

 in the field and also by numerous experiments with observation 

 nests in the laboratory. 



In 1908 Wasmann records that in May, 1902, he discovered at 

 Shotter-Marial an isolated rufa female under a stone over a 

 fusca nest, but separated from it by a partition of earth 71 . This 

 female was evidently awaiting her opportunity to enter the fusca 

 nest. 



On April 14th, 1906, Schmitz and Wasmann found at Luxemburg 

 a small mixed colony of rufa and fusca, containing a rufa queen 

 only ; and in May of the same year they found another in a less 

 advanced stage, containing a rufa female with eggs and about one 

 hundred fairly large fusca workers 71 . 



On July 20th, 1909, Wheeler found below the Turtmann Glacier 

 a large nest of F. fusca under a pile of flat stones, which contained 

 several hundred fusca workers, pupae and larvae, and in the 

 midst was a rufa queen ; and later on the same day, further down 

 the Turtmann Valley, he found a second much smaller colony, 

 comprising only fifty to eighty fusca workers, larvae, and a rufa 

 queen, and lying close together in the centre of the nest were four 

 dead but perfectly fresh rufa queens, each with her body cut in 

 two. Evidently five rufa females had entered the nest, but only 

 one had been successful in being adopted as the queen 74 . 



On August llth, 1909, Wheeler discovered near Zermatt under 

 a small flat stone a little colony comprising about a dozen fusca 

 workers, two dozen very small rufa workers, a rufa queen, and 

 about fifty larvae and pupae of the latter species 74 . 



On May 15th, 1910, when in Parkhurst Forest, Isle of Wight, in 

 company with J. Taylor, I observed a rufa female actually making 

 her way into a fusca nest. A marriage flight had evidently recently 

 taken place, as many rufa females were noticed at large, some being 

 winged and others deflated, and one of the latter was observed 

 near an entrance to & fusca nest. There were several entrances into 

 the ground in a sandy corner, whence fusca workers kept coming 

 in and going out, and the rufa female made overtures to these 

 workers and endeavoured to enter their nest. She had several 

 fights with some of them, rolling over and over together on the 

 ground, but eventually beat them off, and driving the more per- 



