20 THE ARGENTINE ANT. 
that the queen would develop the instinct of attending to and caring 
for the eggs, larvae, and pupae in succession for several months. 
Also, the queens are quite helpless and appear to be entirely incapa- 
ble of defending themselves against other insects. The writer has 
observed a queen ant being captured and bound by a minute spider, 
considerably smaller in size than her own head, without making 
the least attempt to struggle. It therefore seems improbable that a 
defenceless queen could maintain herself in a hostile country for 
several months without the assistance of workers. 
Furthermore, we have several times kept Argentine ant queens 
isolated in small nests, sometimes singly and sometimes in groups, 
but have never yet succeeded in hatching eggs in these nests, or in 
rearing larvae to the adult stage. 
The fact that ditches of running water have proven sufficient bar- 
riers to prevent the spread of the species in orange groves appears to 
disprove the theory that queens returning from the nuptial flight can, 
without the assistance of workers, establish new colonies. 
DISPERSION BY STREAMS. 
As previously mentioned, driftwood is probably the most important 
agency in the natural dispersion of the Argentine ant. Along the 
Mississippi River, below the infested territory, we find a considerable 
number of larger or smaller colonies of the ants, and in places the 
batture * will be infested for miles, with practically no ants inside the 
levee. This can only be accounted for by ants floating down the 
river upon driftwood from infested localities. The river banks are 
covered with logs, more or less rotten, which have stranded during 
high water. In the infested territory these logs are found full of 
ants in all stages in enormous numbers. During high water some of 
these logs drift and lodge alternately, gradually working down the 
river, and distributing colonies in their wake. 
The writer has several times seen complete colonies of ants on a 
floating log, unable to escape. All that was required was a little 
further rise of the water to start them down the river, with their 
cargoes of ants. 
ARTIFICIAL DISSEMINATION. 
Unquestionably the main distributing agent of the Argentine ant 
is man himself, by means of railway trains, boats, and other vehicles 
which he controls and utilizes in the transportation of freight and 
commodities of all kinds. The ants must necessarily have been intro- 
duced to this country by means of ships, and railways have been the 
' The "batture" is that land lying between the true bank of the river and the levee. The batture is 
subject to overflow during high water, is ordinarily not cultivated, and is frequently overgrown with wil- 
lows. The batture is said to be " outside" the levee, while land protected by the levee from high water is 
said to be "inside" the levee. 
