1^8 JOHN L. PRICER. 



collected from various small tracts of woodland within three or four 

 miles of Urbana. These colonies were placed, after collection, 

 in artificial nests of the Fielde type (Biological Bulletin, Vol. 

 II., No. 2), and were kept throughout the winter in a room of the 

 insectory of the state entomologist, which is on the university 

 campus. This room is heated by steam and was kept during the 

 winter at a fairly constant temperature, ranging from yo° to 90 

 F. The ants were fed on sweetened water, pieces of insects, 

 cooked lean meat, boiled eggs, etc., and all seemed to thrive 

 perfectly on this fare. 



My experiments were modeled after those of Fielde, Lubbock 

 and others, but were usually modified in some details, in order to 

 adapt them better to the species used ; and a few experiments 

 were specially devised to follow up and verify the conclusions 

 arrived at. One outdoor colony was studied rather closely from 

 about July 1, 1906, until their activities ceased with the approach 

 of cold weather. All the work was done during the academic 

 year of 1906-07, and all dates given in this paper are of this 

 year. 



Life History of a Colony. 



Believing that a knowledge of the complete life history of such 

 perennial colonies as are formed by the ants under consideration 

 might throw considerable light on other important topics, I have 

 undertaken to do what I could to work it out. The problem is 

 a difficult one to handle in the short time of one collegiate year, 

 and my results are necessarily incomplete. 



My methods have been as follows : 



1. I captured queens which had not settled in permanent 

 quarters after their marriage flight, and placed them in artificial 

 nests to rear their first season's broad of callows. I compared 

 these small colonies as to number, size and general character of 

 the individuals with many other similar colonies found in natural 

 outdoor nests. 



2. Throughout the winter I collected as many larger colonies 

 as possible and carefully counted both the adult ants of all forms, 

 and the larvae. These colonies were collected when the temper- 

 ature was low enough to make them inactive, so that by care- 



