= 
the replete all over and massage the abdomen, as she is powerless to 
perform her own toilet. The crop, which expands to fill almost the 
entire gastric cavity, has no glands discharging into it, and as its walls 
* 
are composed of non-absorbent chitine,* it is to all intents and purposes 
as cleanly a container for fluids as a glass bottle. 
MYRMECOCYSTUS MEXICANUS MOJAVE 
Early in March, 1910, some boys of the Raja Yoga School at 
Point Loma, San Diego, brought me some honey ants. Their gasters 
looked like partly deflated bladders or half-dried raisins. This was 
because their honey contents had been almost exhausted by the winter 
consumption of the nest, and the spring blossoms having not yet opened 
no fresh supplies were available. 
It is a golden moment in the myrmecologist’s career when, with a 
few blows of a mattock on the hard, tough, sandstone subsoil, he lays 
open the honey vaults. In the bright sunshine the repletes glitter like 
jewels. They look like highly-polished amber beads, clear and trans- 
lucent, as they hang from the domed ceilings. So firmly do they cling 
that only one or two are dislodged by the shock of the mattock. Many 
of the workers huddled together, like frightened sheep, in one of the 
chambers, and made no eftort to defend their citadel, but, doubtless, 
they were paralyzed by the sudden glare. All the chambers and pas- 
sages were spotlessly clean and absolutely free from smell. Although 
they look quite helpless, the heavily laden repletes are perfectly well 
able to regain their position in the dome when shaken to the floor. 
Wm. M. Wheeler comments on the need of keeping the nest dry to 
prevent the crumbling of the walls and to prevent the growth of moulds 
on the repletes.t My observations, continued daily for nearly a year, 
have convinced me that they actually prefer a moist soil. I have found 
many chambers of repletes about four inches below the surface of the 
flower beds, in a garden which is repeatedly irrigated during the sum- 
mer months. <A wild nest under observation was situated at the bottom 
of a steep bank where it received not only its own rainfall but the 
surface water shed by the adjoining slope. The soil crumbles very 
readily when moist, and how the nest escaped disaster is not very 
apparent, nevertheless, it appears to be a strong and populous form- 
leary. 
At first it seems almost incredible that these ants, whose mandibles 
cannot pierce a plum skin or the rind of a pear, should be able to 
*Ants, Their Structure, Development and Habits. Page 33. 
+“Honey Ants, with a Revision of the American Myrmecocysti.” Page 380. 
+Ants, Their Structure, Development and Habits. Page 177. 
