83 
notes). The emergence of males and females from the pupa con¬ 
tinues throughout the season, certainly iuto October and prob¬ 
ably to November, but the males perish before the winter. The 
females, however, having bean fertilized and deprived of their 
wings, begin their separate excavations in fall, or continue 
with the workers in nests already established. There they 
hibernate, sometimes, at least, commencing to lay their eggs in 
fall, and living in spring through April and May. 
We have found the eggs of this species only November 10,* 
April 25, and May 20; but exceedingly small larvm certainly 
very recently hatched have been collected by us May 5 to 19. 
July 15, and September 21. Our experiments have not, how¬ 
ever, been conducted in a way to distinguish between eggs and 
young coming from fully developed females and those from 
fertile workers. 
The larvse hatching from time to time throughout the summer 
may be found as pupae from the latter part of May through 
June, July, August, and September, to October 30, and even, 
according to a single observation made at Urbana, to Novem¬ 
ber 20. 
Haunts , Actions , and Habits .—The nests or burrows of this 
ant, in which these breeding operations are carried forward, 
are widely distributed in corn fields and grass lands,—espe¬ 
cially in the latter, along the borders of roads and paths,— 
and* also under stones and boards, in and under decaying 
logs, and in an indefinite variety of situations. In corn fields 
they are established almost wholly in the hills of corn, 
and remain here among the old corn roots throughout the 
season. As this is the commonest and most generally dis¬ 
tributed of all our ants in Illinois, an exhaustive list of its 
places of habitation would have little present interest. It has 
never been found by us to form large settlements, or making 
mounds or conspicuous structures of any kind; but simply scat¬ 
ters its little burrows almost indiscriminately, living in small 
families rather than in great colonies or city-like aggregations, 
and piling up only a small temporary heap of pellets around 
the mouth of its burrow. When its mines are explored they are 
found to consist of irregularly radiating and connected tunnels, 
rarely going to a greater depth than six or eight inches, or ex¬ 
tending outward over a horizontal area of more than twelve or 
fifteen inches. Here and there in their course or at their extremi¬ 
ties and at various depths are chamber-like enlargements in 
* These eggs were obtained from a female brought in from the field October 23. 1893. 
Two females taken at this time were found in earthen cells very much alike, each about 
three fourths of an inch long by half an inch wide, irregularly oval, with the inside nicely 
smoothed. No other ants were found in the immediate vicinity. One of tlmse females was 
placed October 25 in a Lubbock formicary between sheets of glass an I fed with sugar. 
Novembers she had made an oval chamber in the earth (exposed above where it came in 
contact with the glass), and from this chamber had begun to tunnel laterally. November 10 
she was seen with several white eggs in her jaws, and November 12 with a still larger num¬ 
ber. These eggs were kept in a mass, and hastily removed from the oval chamber to the 
tunnel on the slightest disturbance. The carelessness of some workmen broke up this for¬ 
micary on the 16th of the month, and the eggs were not again seen. The eggs collected 
April 25 hatched May 5. 1 hose obtained May 20 were from a nest in an oat field on old corn 
ground, which contained also a queen, or fertile femate, great numbers of worker ants, and 
arvrn of various sizes—from those just hatched to others apparently full grown. 
