Wasps, Bees, and Ants 
547 
which the amber honey shines. The honey is obtained by the workers 
from fresh (growing) Cynipid galls on oak-trees, which exude a sweetish 
sticky liquid which is brought in by the foraging workers and fed to the 
sedentary honey-holders by regurgitation. It is held in the crop of the 
honey-bearer, the distention of which produces the great dilation of the 
abdomen. The stored honey is fed on demand to the other workers by 
regurgitation; a large drop of honey issues from the mouth of the honey- 
bearer, resting on the palpi and lips, and is eagerly lapped up by the feeding 
individuals, two or three often feeding together. A somewhat similar honey- 
ant, Prenolepis imparis (Fig. 750), is common in California. 
The most interesting, however, of the familiar American ants are the 
“slave-makers” and their “slaves.” Three species of slave-makers occur 
in North America, of which two belong to the family under present discussion. 
These are Formica sanguinea, represented by five subspecies, and Polyergus 
rufescens, the shining slave-maker, represented by two subspecies. The 
third slave-making species, Tomognathus americanus , is a rare Myrmicid. 
The slaves of F. sanguinea are other smaller species of the same genus, espe¬ 
cially F. subsericea, F. nitidiventris , and F. subcenescens, while the slaves of 
Polyergus are the same species of Formica and the additional one, particu¬ 
larly common as a slave form, F. schaujussi. Communities of the slave¬ 
making species are occasionally found in which there are no slaves; when 
slaves are present they may be few or many; usually they are more numerous, 
proportionally, the smaller the numbers of the slave-makers in any com¬ 
munity. The slaves are captured by the attack, by a body of slave-making 
workers, on a slave-ant community and of the pillage of the attacked nest of 
larvae and pupae; some of these may be eaten, but others are brought back 
unharmed to the slave-makers’ nest. Here more yet may be eaten, but most 
are cared for and soon hatch to become the slaves of their captors. Never 
are adults enslaved; they are killed or driven off during the attack. The 
slaves undertake unhesitatingly all the varied work of bringing in food, nest¬ 
building, and caring for the young in the community. Indeed in some cases 
the slave-makers come to be very dependent on the slaves, which ought really 
then to be called auxiliaries or helpers, for the slave-maker workers also 
assist in all the community undertakings, while the “slaves” often seem 
to dominate, or at least to be quite as important as, their would-be rulers in 
the determination of the course of events in the compound community. So 
far does this dependence go in the case of certain foreign ants that the origi¬ 
nally dominant species loses its workers, and is thus absolutely dependent 
on the auxiliary species for the maintenance of the community. In the 
general division of labor in the compound community the fighting is always 
done, at any rate chiefly, by the slave-makers. McCook has described in 
some detail the community life of the shining slave-maker, Polyergus lucidus , 
