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THE AMEBIC AN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIV 



of queens taken from a single nest, on the one hand, and of an 

 equally large sample of queens, presumably taken at random 

 from the "general population" of queens, on the other hand. 

 Such a comparison is obviously of a great deal of interest bio- 

 logically. First as to the source of material for the study : The 

 queens from a single nest were the same ones that were used 

 in the first study discussed above. The "general population" 

 queens were obtained in the following way: 



The queens for this second investigation were obtained in the spring 

 of 1908 in the neighborhood of Gerard's Cross. As soon as the first 

 queen wasp appeared, a reward of 1 d. was offered for each queen 

 wasp brought, and considerably over 200 were then rapidly collected. 

 . . . The specimens came in small numbers, sometimes one at a time, 

 often alive, and there is no reason to doubt that they represent a genu- 

 ine sample of the queen wasps of the autumn of 1907, which survived 

 the winter and were starting in the spring of 1908 to establish their 



This "general population" material collected in the way 

 described would appear to be open to serious criticism from 

 several points of view. In the first place, as pointed out by the 

 authors, these "general population" queens represent a different 

 locality and season of the year from the single nest queens with 

 which they are compared. Nothing is known about the effect 

 of environmental and seasonal influences upon the characters 

 studied. In the second place, it is difficult to find in the sen- 

 tences quoted above, which is all tho information that is offered 

 touching the point, any real concrete evidence that these queens 

 collected on the bounty system really were, as a matter of fact, a 

 truly random sample of the "general population" of queen 

 wasps. Since they all came from one restricted locality more 

 than a suspicion is raised, considering the habits of wasps and 

 the relative frequency and distribution of wasp nests, that they 

 may all have emanated from a very few original nests. If they 

 did the whole paper is vitiated. It is not of course meant to assert 

 that they did come from a few nests only, but it is desired merely 

 to point out that the authors of the paper apparently have no 

 evidence (and made no attempt to get any) that they did not 

 so originate. It might be held that the values of the biometric 

 constants calculated for these queens constitute evidence that 

 they are a random sample of the general population. But this 

 is merely arguing in a circle. It is precisely equivalent to say- 

 ing that two and two make four because four is made by 

 and two. The constants are, in the first instance, calculated 



