614 SIB JOHN LTJBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 



I could not see ; but up to the 23rd Jan. no dead one "was brought 

 out of the nest. 



Jan. 19.' Marked the last three of these ants and put them 

 into the nest at 9.30 a.m. They were watched continuously up 

 to 1. At that time two of them had been almost completely 

 cleaned. One was attacked for about a minute soon after 11, 

 and another a little later ; but with these exceptions they were 

 quite amicably received, and seemed entirely at home among the 

 other ants. 



Thus every one of these 32 ants was amicably received. 



These experiments, then, seem to prove that ants removed from 

 a nest in the condition of pupae, but tended by friends, if reintro- 

 duced into the parent nest, are recognized and treated as friends. 

 Nevertheless the recognition does not seem to have been complete. 

 In several cases the ants were certainly attacked, though only by 

 one or two ants, not savagely, and only for a short time. It 

 seemed as if, though recognized as friends by the great majority, 

 some few, more ignorant, or more suspicious, than the rest, had 

 doubts on the subject, which however, in some manner still 

 mysterious, were ere long removed. The case in which one of 

 these marked ants was carried out of the nest, may perhaps be 

 explained by her having been supposed to be ill, in which case, if 

 the malady is considered to be fatal, ants are generally brought 

 out of the nest. 



It now remained to test the result when the pupcc were con- 

 fided to the care T)f ants belonging to a different nest, though, of 

 course, the same species. 



I therefore took a number of pupa) out of some of my nests of 

 Formica fusca and put them in small glasses, with ants from 

 another nest of the same species. Now, as already mentioned, if 

 the recognition were effected by means of some signal or pass- 

 word, then, as we can hardly suppose that the larvae or pupa? 

 Avould be sufficiently intelligent to appreciate, still less to re- 

 member it, the pupae which were intrusted to ants from another 

 nest, wculd have the password, if any, of that nest and not of the 

 one from which they had been taken. Henc^, if the recognition 

 Avere v-^ffected by some password or sign with the antennae, they 

 would be amicably received in the nest from which their nurses 

 had been taken, but not in their own. 



I will indicate the nests by the numbers in my note-book. 



On the 26th August last year, I put some pupae of Formica fusca 



