THE HONEY ANT. 19 



great majority), males, and perfect females. There 

 are, however, joften several queens in. an ants' nest ; 

 while, as we all know, there is never more than one 

 cjUtvn iiiothi-r in ;i liiv<>. Tin- querns of itnts ;nv ]>ru- 

 vided with wings, but after a single flight they tear 

 them off, and do not again quit the nest. In ad- 

 dition to the ordinary workers there is in some species 

 a second, or rather a third, form of female. In almost 

 any ants' nest we may see that the workers differ more 

 or less in size. The amount of difference, however, 

 depends upon the species. In Lasius niger, the small 

 brown garden ant, the workers are, for instance, much 

 more uniform than in the little yellow meadow ant, 

 or in Atta barbara (PI. II. figs. 1 and 2), where some 

 of them are much more than twice as large as others. 

 But in certain ants there are differences still more re- 

 markable. Thus, in a Mexican species, Myrmecocystua, 1 

 besides the common workers, which have the form of 

 ordinary neuter ants, there are certain others in which 

 the abdomen is swollen into an immense sub-diapha- 

 nous sphere. These individuals are very inactive, and 

 serve principally as living honey-jars. I have described 

 in a subsequent page a species of Camponotus (PI. IV. 

 fig. 1) from Australia, which presents us with the same 

 remarkable phenomenon. In_the genus Pheidole (PI. 

 II. figs. 3 and 4), very common in southern Europe, 

 are also two distinct forms without any interme- 

 diate gradations; one with heads of the usual propor- 



1 Weomael, *ll. Aead. Roy. Eruxelltt, vol. v. p. 771. 

 c 2 



