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WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 



water from the surrounding moat, moistened a full pint of the 

 earth, built therein a proper nest, and were busy depositing their 

 larvae in its recesses when I saw them on the following morning." 

 Miss Fielde assures me that she has repeatedly observed this in- 

 teresting occurrence, especially when the ants had larvae or pupae, 

 to which contact with perfectly dry earth would, of course, 

 soon be fatal. There is, therefore, nothing extravagant about 

 the view that desert ants, living in very dry soil, might carry 

 water in the macrochaetal crate instead of in the crop or hypo- 

 pharyngeal pocket. 



In order to ascertain, if possible, the true state of affairs from 

 the ants themselves, I requested Miss Augusta Rucker to send 



FlG. I. Pogonomyrmcx borbmus F. Sm. 



me a number of living workers of the Texan harvester (Pogono- 

 myrmex barbatus F. Smith var. molefaciens Buckley), a species 

 with well-developed circumoral macrochsetae. The study of 

 these insects in an artificial nest soon convinced me that my hy- 

 pothesis, at least so far as this form is concerned, was erroneous. 

 Though the ants were kept for several days without water and 

 then given the liquid in small drops on the floor of their nest in 

 imitation of the drops left by a shower on the stones and plants 

 around the nests in their native environment, they were never 

 seen to take it up into the macrochaetal crate but simply lapped 

 it up with their tongues. Protracted observation also proved 

 that these ants never feed one another by regurgitation but that 

 each worker partakes individually of the seeds, sugar, insects, 



