DUBLIN] SLAVE-MAKIXG HABITS OF ANTS 145 



mixed colony, and second the means taken for its preservation. 

 While the actual founding of the Sanguinary colony has unfortun- 

 ately not been observed, there can be no escape from the con- 

 clusion that this is accomplished through the adoption of the 

 newly fertilized queen of the slave-makers by the workers of an 

 impoverished and queenless colony, whose nest the former has 

 sought out and entered. 



Probable as this seems from the evidence already presented, 

 the above account is made even more plausible by the several 

 cases of temporary slavery recently described by both Wheeler 

 and Wasmann from America and Europe, respectively. These 

 observers have found that Formica consocians and Formica 

 truncicola, together with some other forms all closely related to 

 Sanguinea, are incapable of founding their colonies unassisted. 

 The queens of these species have been observed to enter orphaned 

 colonies of other species where they were adopted. More 

 recently the European investigator Santschi working in Tunis 

 on the colonies of Bothriomyrmex, which in like manner tem- 

 porarily enslave a species of Tapinoma, observed every detail 

 in the adoption of the queen of the former by the workers of 

 the latter species. The young fertilized queens in descend- 



ing to the ground from their nuptial flight make their way to the 

 mounds of the Tapinomas where they are almost immediately 

 seized by the workers and forcibly pulled into the nest. Once 

 within, the Bothriomyrmex queen falls upon the queen of her 

 hosts and either alone or aided by some of the workers soon 

 kills her. The slave-maker is thus left in undisputed control of 

 the colony. The eggs are then laid and the young reared, the 

 workers acting as slaves ; but with the increase in number of the 

 young and the dying off of the slaves the colony soon becomes 

 pure and self sustaining. The similarity of this with what is 

 found in Sanguinea is so complete that there can be no question 

 of the similarity of the founding of both. So too with Polyergus 

 and Anergates. We may conclude that at one time the habit 

 of temporary slave-formation or parasitism was generally dis- 

 tributed among ants and that this probably served as a founda- 

 tion for the later permanent slave colonies. 



It must be apparent, however, that in this way alone no 

 permanent mixed colony could be formed. There must be some 

 way of replenishing the young colony w^ith slaves as the original 



