DIVISION OF LABOUR. 45 



this is self-evident, but even in species where the 

 workers are all of one type, something of the same 

 kind appears to occur. 



In the autumn of 1875 I noticed an ant belonging 

 to one of my nests of F. fusca out feeding alone. The 

 next day the same ant was again out by herself, and for 

 some weeks no other ant, so far as I observed, came out 

 to the food. I did not, however, watch her with suffi- 

 cient regularity. In the winter of 1876, therefore, I 

 kept two nests under close observation, having arranged 

 with my daughters and their governess, Miss Wendland 

 (most conscientious observers), that one of us should 

 look at them once an hour during the day. One of the 

 nests contained about 200 individuals of F. fusca, the 

 other was a nest of P. rufescens with the usual slaves, 

 about 400 in number. The mistresses themselves 

 never came out for food, leaving all this to the slaves. 



We began watching on November 1, but did not 

 keep an hourly register till the 20th, after which date 

 the results are given in the following tables (see 

 Appendix). Table No. 1 relates to the nest of F. 

 fusca, and the ants are denoted by numbers. The 

 hours at which we omitted to record an observation are 

 1 -ft blank ; when no ant was at the honey, the square is 

 marked with an 0. An ant, marked in my register as 



. 3, was at the time when we began observing acting 

 as feeder to the community. 



The only cases in which other ants came to the honey 

 were at 2 P.M. on November 22, when another ant came 



