OCCASIONAL NOTES, 411 
bees so also in ants, some special food is required to develope the female 
embryo into a queen. In Sir John’s nests, while from acéidents and other 
causes many ants are lost during the summer months, in winter nevertheless 
there are few deaths. Specimens of Formica fusca and F’. sanguinea, still 
lively, are now four, and others five, years old at least. The behaviour to 
a strange queen often results in her being ruthlessly killed; yet as com- 
munities are known to have existed for years, queens must occasionally 
have been adopted. With the view of trying how far dislike and passion 
might be assuaged by a- formal temporary acquaintance, a queen of F’. fusca 
was introduced into a queenless nest, but protected by a wire cage, and 
after some days the latter was removed, but the queen was at once attacked. 
Mr. M‘Cook nevertheless relates an instance of a fertile queen of Cremasto- 
gaster lineolata having been adopted by a colony of the same species. Such 
difference in conduct, Sir John suggests, may be due to his own ants having 
been living in a republic, for it is affirmed that bees long without a queen 
are strongly averse to adopting or accepting another. Furthermore, if a few 
auts from a strange nest are put along with a queen they do not attack her, 
and if other ants are by degrees added the throne is ultimately secured. 
In pursuance of experiments to test the sense of direction, some ants were 
trained to go for their food over a wooden bridge made up of segments. 
Afterwards, when they had become accustomed to the way, and an ant was 
in the act of crossing, a segment was suddenly reversed in direction, 
evidently to the ant’s discomfiture; she then either turned round, or, 
occasionally after traversing the bridge, would return. When, however, 
similar pieces of wood were placed between nest and food and the ant at the 
middle piece, those at the ends being transposed, the ant was not discon- 
certed. In other instances a circular paper disk was placed on a paper 
bridge, and when the ant was on the disk this was revolved, but the ant 
turned round with the paper. A hat-box, with holes of entrance and exit 
pierced at opposite sides, was planted across the line to the food; when the 
ant had entered and the hat-box reversed, therefore with holes in opposite 
directions, the ant likewise wheeled about, evidently retaining her sense of 
direction. Again, with the insect en route, when the disk or box with the 
ant within was merely shifted to the opposite side of the food, without being 
turned round, the ant did not turn round, but continued in what ought to 
have been the direction of the food, and evidently was surprised at the 
result on arriving at the spot where the food had previously been. In 
Opposition to the opinion expressed by M. Dewitz, Sir J. Lubbock regards the 
ancestral ant as having been aculeate, and that the rudimentary condition 
of the sting in Formica is due to atrophy, perhaps attributable to disuse. 
A ground plan of the nest of Lasius niger is given by Sir John, which 
exhibits an intricate narrow and winding entrance passage; the main nest- 
cavity is further supported by pillars, and here and there protected recesses 
