December 1, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



707 



history leave the nest and meet the vicissitudes 

 of independent existence as solitary individuals, 

 like the non-social insects. The social organiza- 

 tion of the kelep represents a line of development^ 

 distinct from that of the ants, and shows a rela- 

 tionship with the parasitic and predaceous wasps 

 rather than with the true ants. 



Although fresh surprises meet the reader at 

 every turn as he proceeds to read the paper 

 through, he is led to suspect that Dr. Cook, 

 in spite of his fluent style, may at times he 

 unable to say exactly what he means. He 

 evidently wishes to make us believe that the 

 kelep qua dried insect, spitted on a pin, is 

 nothing but a poor ponerine ant, but qua 

 living, nest-building, boll weevil exterminator, 

 is really a creature sui generis which the ad- 

 vanced systematist would do well to regard 

 as the sole representative of a distinct family, 

 the Kelepidas. Here Dr. Cook shows admir- 

 able self-restraint, for it might just as well 

 be made the type of a new phylum (Kelepata) 

 or siibkingdom (Kelepozoa). At any rate, it 

 is clear that the kelep rises to a dignity 

 analogous to man, whom certain theological 

 taxonomists regard as a poor, though upright 

 primate physically, but as belonging psy- 

 chically to an entirely different order of be- 

 ing, because he is possessed of the ' free intel- 

 ligence of the angels.' 



Dr. Cook's amazing estimate is attributable 

 to a confusion of ideas concerning certain well- 

 known phenomena among social insects in 

 general and to a lot of inconclusive, not to 

 say slovenly, observations on the kelep in par- 

 ticular. He begins by confounding the 

 nuptial, or marriage, flight and the swarm, 

 or, at any rate, by continually introducing 

 these in his discussion where they do not be- 

 long. The nuptial flight is a well-known 

 occurrence in all social insects that have 

 winged males and winged females, in the 

 honey-bees as well as in the ants and termites. 

 Nevertheless, Dr. Cook believes that it is 

 sorely in need of a new name and suggests 

 ' concourse,' a designation as superfluovis as it 

 is inept. Swarming, on the other hand, which 

 is peculiar to the honey-bee, is characterized 

 by the old queen leaving the hive with a de- 

 tachment of workers and establishing a new 



colony, while the young queen takes her place 

 with the remaining workers. When he comes 

 to consider the possible occurrence of this 

 phenomenon in the kelep. Dr. Cook increases 

 the confusion by failing to distinguish shar^jly 

 between ' nest ' and ' colony.' A single colony 

 of ants may be confined to a single nest, in 

 which case it has been called monodomous by 

 Forel, or it may extend over several nests, in 

 which case it is polydomous. The latter may 

 have several queens distributed among the 

 different nests. The workers of these are on 

 friendly terms with one another and may visit 

 back and forth. Undoubtedly the inhabitants 

 of such nests occasionally become detached 

 from the parent colony and may be regarded 

 as new colonies formed by a process of budding 

 or stolonization. These conditions are well 

 known in such highly endowed ants as our 

 species of Formica and Camponotus {F. rufa, 

 sanguinea, exsectoides, C. maculatus var. 

 sansaheanus, etc.). While there is an unmis- 

 takable resemblance between this method of 

 colony formation and the swarming of bees, 

 these ants retain in addition the primitive 

 method of founding colonies by single defl- 

 ated queens. 



Now Dr. Cook's confusion of ideas and 

 lack of information are most flagrantly dis- 

 played when he comes to present the facts that 

 seem to him to warrant the separation of the 

 kelep from the true ants and ally it with the 

 honey-bees. Having made the interesting 

 observation that a kelep colony will form new 

 nests by sending out detachments of workers 

 and females or of workers alone, he shuts his 

 eyes to the resemblance between these condi- 

 tions and those of the higher ants, and forth- 

 with jumps to the conclusion that the kelep 

 can not be a true ant, but must be at least as 

 closely related to the honey-bee.^ Obviously 

 the very opposite is true, since his observa- 

 tions, rightly interpreted, show a closer rela- 

 tionship between the kelep and the higher 

 ants than has been supposed to exist among 



' " Kelep nests are frequently placed only a few 

 inclies apart, the workers of different colonies not 

 being actively hostile. Members of two colonies 

 will forage on the same cotton plant or tree 

 trunk with no signs of animosity " ( p. 14 ) . 



