44 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Makch 1, 1892. 



course of taking upon herself all the duties of matern.tj 

 and colonization, and labouring with her own feet and jaws 

 to prepare a home for, and to support her progeny till 

 thev are sufficiently advanced in age to take their proper 

 shaVe in hfe's burdens. There is scarcely sufficient direct 

 evidence to warrant a decision as to which course would 

 generally be adopted. Sir .John Lubbock invariably found 

 that when he introduced queens into qneenless nests they 

 were not accepted by the inhabitants, but were at once , 

 attacked with energy. Whether this antipathy was owing j 

 to a natural tendency, or was the result of the insects m 

 question having been long unaccustomed to the society and 

 rule of queens, is, however, doubtful. And since any eggs 

 that may be laid by workers, a circumstance that sometimes 

 happens, invariably produce males only, it would seem that 

 a nest from which females are permanently excluded must 

 sooner or later suffer extinction. Moreover, as showing 

 that adoption into a strange nest may sometimes be 

 the lot of the newly-hatched queen, McCook records 

 such a case as having come under his own observation in 

 America. , 



Sir John Lubbock's experiments m the direction ot 

 inducing females to rear their own young without help, and 

 so start'a new nest, were more successful. One day, in the 

 middle of August, 187G, he found two pairs ot thehttle red 

 stinging Ant, Mi/nnica nu/irwdis, flying m his garden. He 

 placed them quite apart from other examples of the same 

 species, and pro^•ided them with all needful requisites in 

 the shape of earth, food and water. All through the 

 winter they remained alive and healthy— a somewhat 

 unusual circumstance, as the males (Fig. 1) appear generally 



is true of one kind is therefore necessarily true of 

 another. . 



All Ants, of whatever species, commence their lite as eggs 

 —these are minute oval bodies, of whitish or yellowish 

 colour. When laid, they have to be stowed away in suitable 

 chambers excavated in the nest, and must be conveyed 

 thither by the workers, by whom also they are carefully 

 guarded. In carrymg the eggs the mandibles are used, but 

 to minimize the difficulty of transit, and the risk of damage, 

 which would result from carrying such minute objects 

 singly, they are caused to adhere together by their sticky 

 surfaces, and can thus be conveyed away in batches. It is 

 hardly necessary to point out that what are popularly 

 called "Ants' eggs "—the large yellowish or cream-coloured 

 oval objects which one often finds lying about in great 

 numbers in the passages of the nest on removing the roof, 

 and which are used as food for pheasants, singing birds, 

 and fishes— are not the objects we are now speaking of, but 

 are the pups of the Ants, which are looked after by the 

 workers quite as assiduously as the true eggs. Their size 

 alone is sufficient to check any such misconception, and to 

 suggest their true character. But there are often to be 

 found in Ants" nests batches of minute eggs, truly so called, 

 which are not those of the Ants themselves, though guarded 

 with as much care as their own. They are little dark- 

 coloured objects, the eggs of aphides or plant-lice, which 

 are kept by some Ants as domestic animals, and of which 

 we shall have more to say in another paper. 



From the egg is hatched, in a few weeks' time, a maggot- 

 like grub (Fig. 2 a), whitish and semi-transparent, and 



Pjq i_ — Male of Myrmica ruyinodis. 

 Magnified six diameters. 



to die m the autumn. In this case they did not die till the 

 spring, just about the time when their partners laid then- 

 first eggs. During the course of the summer various eggs 

 were laid at different dates, many of which hatched in due 

 course, passed safely through larvahood and pupahood, and 

 at last reached the perfect state, coming out as workers 

 some thirteen or fourteen weeks after the laying of the eggs. 

 All attentions that they needed during this time were of 

 course rendered by the parent queens, who thus proved that 

 they had the power, if opportunity should call for its exer- 

 cise, of founding new colonies. Other observers, however, 

 experimenting with different species, have met with less 

 satisfactory results, and it is of course possible that what 

 one species can do in this respect another cannot. The 

 same remark applies to their whole economy; for while the 

 broad facts involved in their social habits are pretty much 

 the same in all, yet no two species are exactly identical m 

 habits, and one must guard against concluding that what 



Fig. 2. — A. Larva. 



B 



B. riqui. 



Cocoon of Ant. 



covered with short hairs ; it is plainly divided into seg- 

 ments, but has no legs. It is rather conical in shape, 

 tapering towards one end, at which is situated the mouth, 

 furnished with a couple of tiny hooks, which, though 

 suggestive of jaws, seem to be of little use as such. These 

 larvfB are perfectly helpless, and cannot even feed them- 

 selves. Here is one of the penalties attendant upon the 

 development of the social instinct ; the insect is never left 

 to itself, but has to be looked after and cared for from the 

 day of its entry into the world as an egg till the time of its 

 extrication fi-om the last skin it will ever shed. In the 

 case of a solitary insect, such as by far the greater number 

 of insects are, no such care would as a rule be taken ; the 

 e»"s would be left to themselves, and the larvis would be 

 capable of providing their own food, or if not actually doing 

 so, yet of feeding themselves from a store previously 

 accumulated by the mother. With the hatching of the 

 e^cs in an Ant's nest, therefore, the duties of the workers 

 are enormously increased. Scores of httle mouths have 

 to be kept supphed with suitable food, each one several 

 times a day, and but a brief intermission of their attentions 



