SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 



A LIGHT-WEIGHT, PORTABLE OUTFIT FOR THE 

 STUDY AND TRANSPORTATION OF ANTS 



1. Nests.— For some time I have been observing ants in arti- 

 ficial nests. I have used Fielde (1900-1904) nests ten inches 

 long and six inches wide, a size which needs cleaning less often 

 than the sizes used by Miss Fielde, and gives the ants, especially 

 species of large stature, more freedom. Though these nests are 

 in most respects satisfactory they have proved, when of this size, 

 to be too heavy to be easily carried about on a journey. In 

 order, therefore, to diminish the weight, nests of the same gen- 

 eral plan as Fielde nests were made of aluminum instead of 

 glass. Necessarily, however, the construction was quite different 

 from the prototype. From a flat sheet of light-weight aluminum 

 (0.28 mm. thick) was cut a piece of the form shown in Fig. 1. 

 Aluminum of this thickness can easily be cut with an ordinary 

 pair of sheers. The lines c, d, g, h, and e, f, i, ,/'. were ruled on 

 the aluminum with a lead pencil: at each of these lines the metal 

 was bent at right angles by a tinsmith. Thus k, I, m, n, became 

 the vertical sides of a shallow tray one half inch deep, while o, 

 p, q, r became a practically continuous overhang projecting hori- 

 zontally inward one half inch as a marginal part of the tray. 

 The parts of o, p, q and r, which overlapped each other at the 

 corners of the tray, were firmly fastened together by MeGills' 

 fasterners. 1 The tray, or nest was divided into two 

 mately equal chambers, A and B, by a partition five inc 

 This was made of a strip of aluminum an inch 1 



