72 
Psyche 
[March 
praedator (F. Smith)—March 7 to May 30—is suggestive either of 
the production of more than one sexual brood by the colonies or 
that each colony is out of step with its conspecifics. 
An alternative interpretation of my figures is possible: each col¬ 
ony of a species could be out of phase with its neighbours, in which 
case each burst of alate males trapped would have come from a 
distinct colony. Field observations, however, suggest colonies of the 
surface foraging species— Typhlopone fulvus and Anomma nigri¬ 
cans— are too widely dispersed to support this hypothesis. 
Except for Anomma nigricans, the common black driver ant of 
the forest zone (Haddow et al., 1966), the species concerned are 
believed to be predominantly non-nomadic—even, it seems, Typh¬ 
lopone fulvus, the common brown driver ant of the forest area 
(Wheeler 1922). There is no positive evidence at present for the 
cyclic emission of males to be associated with migratory periodici¬ 
ties, except in Anomma species (Raignier and van Boven, 1955). 
That the period between peaks in April, May and June (Fig. 5) is 
longer than in December and January is to be expected: the months 
December through February are the hottest ones. But are these 
cycles of about 30 days in the emission of alate males the concomi¬ 
tant of an egg-to-egg cycle in worker brood production? 
In their study of Anomma Raignier and van Boven (1955) note 
the period from 1st instar larva to alate adult males to occupy 40 to 
52 days, to be followed by a preflight stage of 10 days. They give no 
information on the duration of the egg stage and their account is 
somewhat obscured by a confusing larval nomenclature, but they 
conclude broods of males take twice as long to develop as broods of 
females and that a colony with male brood remains at one place for 
twice as long as the normal. This confirms my view that Raignier 
and van Boven are wrong in denying the existence of cycles in 
Anomma. The data can be interpreted as showing a 30-days cycle to 
be present, male production occupying two consecutive cycles. That 
a colony may produce multiple out-of-phase broods is not excluded 
by this theory. 
Comparing the flights of alate male Anomma with those of other, 
non-doryline, species, Raignier and van Boven state of the 
former ‘. . . ces vols ne sont pas des vols nuptiaux mais uniquement 
des vols de dispersion.’ Unless ‘dispersion’ here means something 
other than migration or spreading it is impossible to follow this. The 
only adaptive significance one can accept is the reverse of what these 
