10 



climb the pepper plants, but weevils were in a few instances found 

 roosting upon them — a safer place, apparently, than upon the cotton. 



While most ant colonies have only one queen, several were found 

 with larger numbers, usually two or three, but in one case six and in 

 another fifteen. Queens occasionally retain one or both of their wings, 

 and when the colony with the fifteen queens was captured several of 

 them had wings, which were lost later. It was thought that these 

 queens might be 3^oung and unfertilized, but large numbers of eggs 

 have been laid and these are now hatching. If the queens were unfer- 

 tilized the eggs will doubtless, to judge from, the analog}^ of bees and 

 other ants, produce males, which may be very desirable if it should 

 prove possible to breed the insects in captivity. 



The queen does not have a special chamber, but walks about among 

 the workers. She was usually found in the lowest chamber of the 

 nest, with eggs and young larvae, and nearest to the "bone 3\ard," 

 but if the lower chambers of the nest were opened first b}^ digging in 

 from the side, she sometimes took refuge in the upper rooms or per- 

 haps escaped into the open air. In several of the nests no queens 

 were found. In the cages the queens usually remain constantly in the 

 lowest chambers and are fed by the workers. Some queens seem, 

 however, to have more of the instincts of workers, and one or two 

 regularl}^ come to the surface to feed with them. In one instance a 

 worker was seen carrying a queen about the nest. She had been 

 seized by the jaws and her body was waving in the air over the 

 worker's back. It was feared at first that she was dead, but on being 

 released her actions were normal. 



At Victoria some of the colonies were released by placing the jar on 

 the ground and inserting a bent cotton stalk on which the insects could 

 climb out. The}^ immediately began digging a burrow at the base of 

 the adjacent cotton plant, and in the course of two hours the workers 

 were ready for the queen and a delegation of two or three of them 

 brought her out. She returned several times to the underground 

 chambers of the cage, but was finally aroused sufficiently to follow 

 along the cotton stalk and out of the jar. The eggs and larvae had 

 already been removed. One of the queens did not go directly into 

 the ground, but climbed the cotton plant and remained there about an 

 hour, in spite of many visits from workers who caressed her with their 

 antennae as though to coax her to come down. In some instances the 

 queen remained longer in the old nest and was not transferred till 

 night, when the colonies seem to be quite as active as in the daytime, 

 perhaps more so. On another occasion the queen was carried bodily 

 into the new nest by a worker who seized her by the mandibles, as 

 mentioned above. 



The very strong homing instinct of the ants would have made it 

 safe to release them in the plantations for study, even if their other 



