FiELDE] COMMUNAL LIFE OF ANTS 243 



male or female depends on the tgg in which it has its origin. If 

 the egg be unimpregnated, its issue will be a male ant ; but if 

 it be impregnated its issue will be a female ant. Whether the 

 female become a queen or a worker depends on the feeding of the 

 larva, the quality and quantity of nutriment required for the 

 making of a queen being a secret known only to the ant-nurses. 



Male ants are always winged, and are generally smaller than 

 their queens. They are comparatively short lived, maturing a 

 few days after hatching, and dying after a few weeks or months. 

 None has been known to live longer than a year. 



The queen is winged at her hatching ; but loses her wings after 

 mating. Under the attraction of the warmth and light dis- 

 covered at the exits of the nest at swarming-time, she goes forth 

 into the bright summer world, meets her mate, seeks a congenial 

 habitation, drops her wings, and becomes the founder of a new 

 community. She lays a few eggs in the safe seclusion of her 

 abode, feeds the larvae with regurgitations from her own internal 

 store, and takes competent care of her first brood until the young 

 workers are able to make their way into the surrounding area to 

 forage for themselves and bring food to their queen-mother. 

 With the assistance of her first brood of daughters, who are 

 always few in number and diminutive in stature, the queen rears 

 a second brood, greater in number and larger in size. As the 

 years pass the community grows ever more populous, the daugh- 

 ter-queens ordinarily going away to found new colonies, while 

 the daughter-workers, wingless and devoted to domestic duties, 

 increase to millions in the ancestral nest. A single community 

 of ants sometimes occupies an area hundreds of yards in extent, 

 although there are species of ants of which the colonies are always 

 small. In summer they go far afield foraging for supplies, and 

 assiduously rear their young. In autumn they retire with their 

 larvae into the deeper recesses of their dwellings and there 

 hibernate until spring. 



Queens may live so long as fifteen years, continuing to lay 

 eggs and to rear daughter-ants. Workers may live several years, 

 and may lay eggs. 



Every species of ant may be considered as hostile to every 

 other species. This mutual aversion is based on differences in 

 odor, all unfamiliar ant-odors being offensive to ants. If a few ants 

 of one species are crushed upon a bit of sponge, their specific odor 



