Hillside. 167 



collecting food, whilst the black ants appsar to be purely 

 household slaves. Strange to say, in Switzerland, where 

 these two ants have exactly the same connection of master 

 and slave as in England, but where the slaves are usually 

 in greater relative abundance, some of the latter are allowed 

 to join their masters on their foraging expeditions. 



We can hardly leave the slave-making ants without 

 mentioning one other species, Formica rufescens, another 

 red species, be it observed. The males and females do 

 absolutely no work. The females produce eggs, but when 

 these hatch, the neuters or workers have not the capacity to 

 bring the larvae up. These neuters, however, are active 

 enough in capturing the slave species, Formica fusca, and 

 conveying them to the nest. The latter appear to offer con- 

 siderable resistance to their capture, but the larger ants 

 are generally successful in obtaining pupae, which they carry 

 home, and which, in due time, produce ants, which become 

 household drudges to their masters. Once the slaves are 

 domiciled in the nest they take upon themselves the whole of 

 the household duties, even to the building of the nest in 

 which their masters live. They tend the young larvae and 

 pupae, and when it is necessary to leave one nest and seek 

 another, the slaves settle everything (according to Huber), 

 actually carrying their masters in their jaws. The same 

 author records how, on one occasion, he shut up thirty of these 

 ants with a bountiful supply of the food they liked best, but 

 without a slave ; so helpless were they under these con- 

 ditions that, although they had their larvae and pupse with 

 them everything, in fact, to stimulate them to work they 

 were actually unable to feed themselves, and several perished. 

 The advent of a single slave, however, soon altered matters. 



