48 THE AKGENTINE ANT. 
and blunt. The shape of the head alone permits distinction between 
the male and virgin (winged) queen without the aid of a glass. 
The normal time of appearance of the males, of course, follows the 
appearance of the male pupse, usually in the spring, but a few appear 
in the fall. They are plentiful in the colonies during the latter part 
of April and May, and numbers are still to be found in June. After 
the beginning of July, however, they vanish, and are very seldom 
seen during the hot months of the summer. A few are occasionally 
found during October, November, and December, and in one case 
a few males were found in a colony as late as January. 
The males are essentially drones, and never exhibit any indications 
of industry or usefulness beyond their special function. 
The Queen. 
Adult queens are found in two forms, the winged and the wingless 
or dealated. The former is the virgin queen and the latter the fertile 
or egg-laying queen. 
THE VIRGIN QUEEN. 
When the queen reaches maturity she possesses long narrow wings 
which are rather opaque, gray in color, with the veins and stigma 
pale brown. In other respects she does not differ in appearance 
from the dealated queen, described on page 49. The wings are 
retained until after the queen has mated. Mating may take place 
during the nuptial flight in spring, but under some circumstances 
occurs within the nest without any flight being made. In the latter 
case the queen loses her wings shortly after fertilization and assumes 
her egg-laying duties in the home nest along with the older queens 
already there. 
The earliest date at which we were able to find virgin queens in the 
outdoor colonies was April 1. Normally the first spring appearance 
of males precedes the first appearance of virgin queens by about 
three weeks. 
Probably owing to the extreme shortness of the winged stage, 
winged queens are very hard to find in the outdoor nests. Although 
they must exist in large numbers every spring, they have been col- 
lected only occasionally. Most of our observations have been made 
upon specimens reared from pupae in artificial nests. 
An enormous and general flight of males and virgin queens was 
observed at Baton Rouge, La., in the spring of 1908, when large num- 
bers of both sexes were captured in butterfly nets. On the other 
hand, during the spring of 1910 and that of 1911 no general flight 
was observed at New Orleans, La., although close watch was kept for 
one. Considerable numbers of males were seen flying around the 
city electric lights, and individual males were found flying aimlessly 
