ORIGIN OF A NEST OF MYRMICA., 33 
In April one of the males died, and the second in the 
middle of May. The first eggs were laid between April 
12 and 23. They began to hatch the first week in 
June, and the first larva turned into a chrysalis on 
the 27th; asecond on the 30th; a third on July 1, 
when there were also seven larve and two eggs. On 
the 8th there was another egg. On July 8 a fourth 
larva had turned into a pupa. On July 11 I found 
there were six eggs, and on the 14th about ten. On the 
15th one of the pupe began to turn brown, and the 
eggs were about 15 in number. On the 16th a second 
pupa began to turn brown. On the 2!/st a fifth larva 
had turned into a pupa, and there were about 20 eggs. 
On July 22 the first worker emerged, and a sixth larva 
had changed. On the 25th I observed the young worker 
carrying the larve about when I looked into the nest ; 
a second. worker was coming out. On July 28 a third 
worker emerged, and a fourth on Aug 5. The eggs 
appeared to be less numerous, and some had probably 
been devoured. 
This experiment shows that the queens of Myrmica 
ruginodis have the instinct of bringing up larve and the 
power of founding communities. The workers remained 
about six weeks in the egg, a month in the state of 
larvee, and twenty-five to twenty-seven days as pupzx. 
Since, however, cases are on record in which com- 
munities are known to have existed for many years, 
it seems clear that fresh queens must be sometimes 
adopted. I have indeed recorded several experiments 
