520 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



ants and their pupae in the forests, on the ground of their keeping caterpillars in check; 

 but, in certain parts of the northern United States, ants are looked upon as a nuisance, 

 on account of the trouble caused by the great number of mounds which they make in 

 meadows; and the little yellow ant {Myrmica molesta) which frequently instals itself 

 in our dwellings is a serious pest both in the north and in the south. 



The multiplication of communities of ants is a question which is not yet well 

 understood. The queens and males which have been developed in a nest leave in :i 

 body, usually on some warm summer day. The pairing then takes place in the air. 

 Frequently the males and queens,from many nests in one locality, take this marriage 

 flight at the same time. Thus immense clouds of winged ants are often observed. 

 After the pairing of the sexes the males soon perish. The females alight on the 

 ground, and, after crawling about for a greater or less time, break off their wings. 

 As ants pair only once, and as the subsequent duties of the queens can be performed 

 without wings, this shedding of them is simply the discarding of useless appendages. 

 Respecting the period from this point to the time when the new colony is firmly 

 established, we have very little reliable data. As colonies of ants have been known to 

 exist for a much longer period than we can reasonably suppose a queen to live, it is 

 probable that some of the young queens, after pairing, join old colonies. 3[anv of 

 the young queens doubtless perish, falling prey to other insects and to birds. Others 

 undoubtedly found new colonies. Lubbock has demonstrated that, in the case of at 

 least one species {Myrmica rugiiioides), the queen ant has the power of founding a 

 new community. Experiments with other species indicate that this power is not 

 common to all ants. It may be that in some species a queen associates herself with 

 several workei's, and they together begin a nest. 



Although the number of ants in a community is often very great, reaching in some 

 cases half a million, each ant will recognize every other member of the community as a 

 friend, and will treat as a stranger any ant from nnother community. That the recog- 

 nition of friends is not personal or individual is proven by the fact that, when a 

 colony is separated into two parts for several months, the young ants which have been 

 reared during this time in one part are recognized as friends when placed in the othei- 

 part, although they have never been seen before. That the recognition is not due to 

 the use of a pass-word, as has been supposed, is indicated by the fact that pupas 

 tended by the ants from a different nest are treated as friends in the nest from which 

 they were taken, and as strangers, if put into the nest of their nurses , '■' for, if the 

 recognition were effected by means of some signal or pass-word, then, as we can 

 hardly suppose that the larvae or pupre would be sufficiently intelligent to appreciate, 

 still less to remember it, the pupae which were entrusted to ants from another nest 

 would have the pass-word, if any, of that nest, and not of the one from which they 

 had been taken." Dr. McCook came to the conclusion, from some of his experiments, 

 that ants recognize one another by smell. It is hard to believe, however, that each 

 community of ants has a separate and peculiar smell. 



Much has been written upon the power of communication of ants ; and it seems 

 very well established that ants have some kind of language. How communication is 

 effected is not known. It seems probable that it is, in ])nrt at least, by means of the 

 antennae. Every observer of these insects has seen ants meet and cross antennfe, and 

 behave as if holding a conversation. Frequently the subsequent behavior of the ants 

 Beems to indicate that one has received information from the other. 



Some of the most interesting phenomena connected with ants are the relations 



