THE 
BMERICAN NATURALIST 
Vor., XXXV. September, 1901. No. 417. 
THE COMPOUND AND MIXED NESTS OF 
AMERICAN ANTS. 
WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 
PART II (continued). 
V. Du tosis. 
UNDER this heading we may include all those remarkable 
mixed nests which owe their origin to the enslavement of one 
species of ant by another. This condition is characterized by 
Wasmann (91, p. 43) as follows: ‘Here ants of different 
Species dwell together, not only on the same spot, but coalesce 
to form one colony, a single social whole. In such communi- 
ties the unity of the colony is of paramount importance, and 
the specific differences between the various components of the 
Colony lapse so far into abeyance that they appear to be non- 
existent ; the consociating ants, belonging originally to differ- 
ent nests, behave towards each other as if they were kith and 
kin, and carry on in common the construction of the nest, the 
Acquisition of food, the education of the offspring, the defense of 
the nest, etc., so far as this is permitted by their physical and 
. PSychical endowments and the law of the physiological division 
701 
