SUGGESTED EXPLANATIONS OF CERTAIN PHE- 

 NOMENA IN THE LIVES OF ANTS ; WITH A 

 METHOD OF TRACING ANTS TO THEIR 

 RESPECTIVE COMMUNITIES. 



ADELE M. FIELDE. 



A. During summers spent upon Cape Cod and Cape Ann, I 

 have observed a preponderance of queen-pupse in the nests of myr- 

 micine and camponotine ants in the month of June, and a marked 

 diminution or absence of such pupae late in summer. This obser- 

 vation has led me to believe that queens may be the issue of eggs 

 deposited in the preceding summer, having passed the winter in 

 the larval stage in company with the hibernating ant-nurses. 

 They would thus receive the earliest attention of these nurses at 

 the beginning of the warm season and would then acquire the 

 size and traits that distinguish them from the workers, the workers 

 being more rapidly developed from eggs deposited during the 

 summer in which they hatch. It is well established that the 

 activities of the ants increase with the temperature 1 up to 85 ° F. 

 or 30 C. The maximum activity of the nurses, with the more 

 abundant food-supply in summer, should make queen-pupae 

 more numerous in early autumn than in early summer, were 

 these pupae the product of eggs deposited during the summer 

 in which the queen-pupae are discovered. The relative paucity 

 of insect food, the comparative inactivity of the ant-nurses during 

 the spring, and the brevity of the interval between the emergence 

 of the ants from the hibernating place and the discovery of the 

 queen-pupae, render it fairly certain that these pupae had attained 

 the larval stage previous to the retirement of the ants into the 

 deep recesses of their nest at the approach of the preceding 

 winter. 



1 " Observations on Ants in their Relation to Temperature and Submergence," A. 

 M. Fielde ; Biological Bulletin, Vol. VII., No. 3, August, 1904, and "Tem- 

 perature as a Factor in the Development of Ants," A. M. Fielde, Biological Bulle- 

 tin, Vol. IX., No. 6, November, 1905. 



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