April 7, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



553 



Breeding Habits of the Kelep. — The con- 

 tinued study of the kelep in Guatemala, as 

 well as in the United States, makes it possible 

 to outline the breeding habits of the insect, 

 which are in many respects different from 

 those of the true ants, and very much more 

 suited to the purposes of domestication. Pop- 

 ular language affords only the one word ' ants ' 

 for all the wingless, social insects. Even the 

 termites are everywhere called ' wood ants ' or 

 ' white ants,' though having no affinity or sim- 

 ilarity with the true ants apart from their 

 social habits and the winglessness of the 

 worker castes. 



The kelep furnishes another chapter of the 

 same kind of history. It has, apparently, little 

 or nothing to do with the true ants. Its social 

 economy does not follow the monarchical sys- 

 tem of the ants and termites, but represents 

 an entirely different system, more like that of 

 the honey-bees, in that new colonies are found- 

 ed by the subdivision of the workers of older 

 communities instead of by solitary queens. 

 The keleps, indeed, have carried the principle 

 of organization a step further than the bees, 

 for they do not depend upon the queen to 

 lead the swarm, but take her by the jaw and 

 carry her over to the new burrow, in case she 

 fails to go voluntarily. The new establish- 

 ment is also equipped with eggs and larvas 

 brought over from the old, so that the found- 

 ing of a new colony does not involve any inter- 

 ruption of the domestic activities. This mobile 

 organization of the keleps suggests to a slight 

 extent the social habits of the nomadic driver 

 ' ants,' and as with these the queens are sta- 

 tionary, and probably never leave the nest ex- 

 cept when carried by the workers in migrating 

 to the new home. Males are to be found in 

 the kelep nests throughout the year and cross- 

 fertilization is probably accomplished by the 

 wandering of these from one to another of the 

 closely adjacent, not unfriendly communities. 

 The kelep queens have wings at first, but prob- 

 ably never use them. In some of the related 

 genera the queens are quite wingless, as 

 among the drivers. 



Ahility to Withstand Cold. — A cold storage 

 experiment made in Washington last August 

 showed that the keleps would be able to with- 



stand low temperatures, and the colonies which 

 have been left in the Texas cotton fields 

 through the winter have lived long enough to 

 show that cold weather is not likely to be 

 the insunnountable obstacle which will pre- 

 vent the establishment of this species in the 

 United States. 



Eecent advices indicate, however, that none 

 of the field colonies which have received no 

 food or care of any kind since they were 

 placed in the ground last July will survive 

 to the cotton planting season. A sufficient 

 cause for this mortality is doubtless to be 

 found in starvation, though other contributing 

 factors are apparent, now that the social organ- 

 ization of the insects is better understood. 

 The season has been, as is well known, one of 

 unusual severity, both in drought and cold. 

 The colonies were planted in the fields so late 

 in the season that it seemed necessary to look 

 for the dampest places in order to give them a 

 fair chance to dig, but this has exposed them 

 to special danger from flooding, which appears 

 to have been the immediate cause of death in 

 several instances, and possibly in all. The 

 fields in the vicinity of Victoria, where most of 

 the colonies were located, were completely and 

 repeatedly denuded of their foliage, flowers, 

 buds and young bolls by the leaf worms. Al- 

 though the keleps readily captured and made 

 use of these when the successive broods were 

 in the larval condition, and even broke into 

 the pupae, there were intervals when food was 

 almost entirely lacking, and even boll weevils 

 became extremely scarce. 



There are also two important social causes 

 of demoralization. The colonies were brought 

 from Guatemala under the impression that 

 the keleps were true ants, and would be able 

 to replenish themselves if the queens were se- 

 cured. Our artificial nests were mostly very 

 small, no jars of suitable size being obtainable 

 in that part of Guatemala. The complement 

 of workers was, therefore, usually very much 

 below the normal. It has since been learned 

 by repeated observation that the keleps are like 

 the honey-bees, in that the reduction of the 

 colonies below the normal size induces dis- 

 couragement, dejection and aberration of in- 

 stincts. Neither did we take pains to include 



