1960] 
Creighton — Pheidole militicida 
7 
the awns at opposite sides of the spikelet and pull in opposite directions 
they are usually able to break apart the lemmae and thus expose the 
inner parts of the spikelet. The seed then lies between two paleae but 
these do not completely enclose it and it is a simple operation for the 
minors to pick the exposed seed out. When the major extracts the 
seeds the lower end of the spikelet is grasped in the major’s jaws. 
Pressure from these either breaks the lemmae apart or, if the seed has 
exactly the right position as the jaws close, it is forced outward be- 
tween the lemmae and paleae, which spread enough to let the seed 
squeeze through. The envelope is often left intact when the seed 
has been extracted by this method. Whether intact or in fragments, 
the envelope is then ready to be placed on the chaff pile and the 
seed extracted from it may be cracked open and eaten or stored in 
one of the seed chambers. 
There is abundant evidence that when the seeds are stored they are 
entire. The minors in our artificial nests spent many hours arranging 
and rearranging the seeds in groups. We take this to be the equivalent 
of the packing of the seed chambers in a free nest. No seed in these 
groups was ever damaged in any way until it was taken out and eaten. 
Moreover, there were usually a number of partially eaten seeds pres- 
ent in the nests, for the piilchellus seeds are seldom entirely con- 
sumed. Such opened seeds invariably shriveled after a day or two 
and usually moulded a few days later. That cracked or damaged 
seeds could be stored for months in the seed chambers seems thorough- 
ly impossible. 
We were surprised to discover that all the seeds opened in the arti- 
ficial colonies were opened by the minors. The majors never made 
the slightest efforts to open the seeds and rarely paid any attention to 
them once their envelopes had been removed. In an effort to force the 
majors to crack open seeds, several nests containing only majors were 
set up. These were liberally supplied with seeds of T. pulchellus. 
Some of the majors in these nests lived for several weeks but they 
never made any attempt to open the seeds and ultimately all of them 
died, apparently from starvation, in the midst of the seeds which 
could have supplied them with food. The minors open the seeds 
of pulchellus and desvauxii by gnawing at the pointed end of the seed. 
Sometimes the seed is held by one minor and gnawed open by another, 
but a more common method involves only one minor, who places the 
blunt end of the seed on the floor of the nest and, with the seed held 
in a vertical position gnaws at its pointed end. The seeds of des- 
vauxii are entirely consumed but, as noted above, those of pulchellus 
