Bulletin of the Wisconsin Natural History Society Volume 7-9 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... cutting off an oblique-angled turn as shown (Fig. i, a). Again, I noted that the messengers (special messengers in the sense that their speed and other motions differed from the majority) who, as later observations showed, were evidently hurrying back for reinforcements, 'did not stop at the captured nest but cut 'across lots' slightly and started on the run home." Thus both those reinforcements coming from the home nest laid out quickly a new trail,--a curved hypotenuse to the oblique angled triangle of which the captured nest was the apex,--and also the returning messengers cut off even more, making a more nearly straight hypotenuse (Fig. i, line a). The second example, Aug. 6, 1900: While the soldier nest cited above was undergoing a swarming of sexed ants (appaiently only winged females), another nest of the same variety, F. fubintegra, some dozen meters northeast of the above nest, sent a foray south across the lawn at 9:30 a.m., to the region just beyond (south, Fig. i, b.) a sugar maple; but by noon, most of the reds had returned without any sign of an attack being made. At 4:30 p.m., the same route was again thronged, only they did not go so far, staying more on the hither side of the maple (north and east. Fig. 1,3.) with their advance spread out over 5 or 6 square meters. Fifteen minutes later: suddenly, with nervous jerks they concentrated in a compact mass rushing west, a direction at right angles to the end of the main trail, and continued for over 60 c.m. where they concentrated about four or five captured blacks. During the five minutes occupied by this shifting of the advance, I found, about a meter beyond them. an inconspicuous black colony into which nervous blacks were hurrying. I presume that the foraging trail of...