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Bulletin Wisconsin IVatnral History Society. [Vol. 5, No. 2. 
to seize and carry the offspring of the other indiscriminately, 
although up to this time neither had shown the sHghtest interest 
in the brood of the other. By reversing the illumination of the 
chambers and keeping damp sponges in both of them, it was 
possible to make the ants move back and forth from one to the 
other, but, although this was repeated on several successive days, 
the ants always ended by keeping their brood intermingled, either 
at the edge of the sponge, or in one of its cavities. The original 
compound nest had, therefore, been converted into a mixed colony. 
This was quite unexpected, as I had found it extremely difficult to 
bring about such a result in my colonies of the typical L. emersoni 
and M. canadensis. The rapidity of this conversion may have 
been connected with the condition of the inquiline and host broods, 
for at the time of its occurrence all the larvae had become pupae, 
and many of these were pigmented and ready to hatch. The 
presence of eggs or larvae among the Leptothorax brood would 
probably have rendered such a fusion of the two colonies 
impossible. 
Early in August a few males and females of the Leptotliorax 
and seven males of the Myrmica made their appearance. The 
behavior of the inquilines towards the latter was the same as 
towards the workers. The little ants shampooed these black, 
winged creatures and licked their mouth-parts, but I was unable 
to ascertain whether any food was regurgitated. The Leptothorax 
were always on hand whenever a Myrmica male was being fed by 
a worker of its own species. Sometimes the guests would congre- 
gate in numbers and lap up portions of the food as it was passing 
•from the tongue of the worker to that of the male. 
August loth I isolated twenty of the Leptothorax workers 
and a few of their pupae in a nest provided with honey and a few 
dismembered house-flies. The ants lived for a few days in a 
cavity of the sponge till their pupae had hatched and then wandered 
aimlessly about the nest. They were never seen to approach the 
food in the manger and gradually died one by one before the end 
of the month. This result was very different from that obtained 
with isolated colonies of the typical L. emersoni, for these soon 
