Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/296

292 Let us follow as briefly as possible the eventful life history of the queen ant. After more protracted larval and pupal stages than those of the worker and male—more protracted in order that she may store up more food and hence more energy in her body—she hatches as a sensitive callow in a colony at the height of its annual development. In other words, she is born into a community teeming with queens, workers and males, and the larva? and pupæ of these various forms at the season of their greatest activity and growth. From all sides a shower of stimuli must be constantly raining in upon her delicate organization as she tarries for days or even weeks in the dark galleries of the parental

 (Camponotus pennsylvanicus), consisting of the queen, three minim workers and a packet of young larvæ, inhabiting the abandoned pupa case of a beetle (Rhagium lineatum) under pine bark. About natural size.

nest, while her color gradually deepens and her integument acquires its mature consistency. During this her prenuptial life, she may assist the workers in carrying about, feeding and cleaning the brood. She eats independently of the food brought into the nest by the foraging workers. She may occasionally join the workers in excavating chambers and galleries. If she belongs to a slave-making species she may even accompany the workers on their cocoon-robbing expeditions. Although she shows that she is able to perform all these actions supposed to be peculiar to the workers, she often does so with a certain desultory incoherency.

When fully mature she becomes impatient for her marriage flight and must often be forcibly detained in the nest by the workers till the propitious hour arrives when the males and females from all the nests in the neighborhood rise high into the air and celebrate their nuptials.