146 HYMENOPTERA CHAP. 



latter that become perfect Insects are workers of all sizes, and 

 at once undertake the duties of tending the young and 

 feeding the mother, who, being thus freed from the duties of 

 nursing and of providing food while she is herself tended and 

 fed, becomes a true .queen-ant. Thus it seems established that 

 in the case of this species the division of labour found in the 

 complex community, does not at first exist, but is correlative with 

 increasing numbers of the society. Further observations as to the 

 growth of one of these nascent communities, and the times and 

 conditions under which the various forms of individuals composing 

 a complete society first appear, would be of considerable interest. 



An American species of the same genus, C. pennsylvanicus, 

 the carpenter-ant, establishes its nests in the stumps of trees. 

 Leidy observed that solitary females constructed for themselves 

 cells in the wood and closed the entrances, and that each one in 

 its solitary confinement reared a small brood of larvae. The 

 first young produced in this case are said to be of the dwarf 

 caste, and it was thought by the observer that the ant remained 

 not only without assistance but also without food during a period 

 of some weeks, and this although she was herself giving food to 

 the larvae she was rearing. 



Adlerz states that the females or young queens take no food 

 while engaged in doing their early work, and that the large 

 quantity of fat-body they possess enables them to undergo several 

 months of hunger. In order to feed the young larvae they use 

 their own eggs or even the younger larvae. It is to the small 

 quantity of food rather than to its nature that he attributes the 

 small size of the first brood of perfect workers. M. Janet 1 has 

 recently designed an ingenious and simple apparatus for keeping 

 ants in captivity. In one of these he placed a solitary female of 

 Lasius alienus, unaccompanied by any workers or other assistants, 

 and he found at the end of 9 8 days that she was taking care of 

 a progeny consisting of 50 eggs, 2 larvae, 5 pupae in cocoons, 5 

 without cocoons. On the 102nd day workers began to emerge 

 from the cocoons. 2 From these observations it is evident that 

 the queen-ant, when she begins her nest, lives under conditions 

 extremely different from those of the royal state she afterwards 

 reaches. 



1 Ann. Sod. cnt. France, 1893, p. 467. 

 2 Ann. Soc. cnt. France, 1893, Bull. p. cclxiv. 



