of the year, I have
captured dozens of these insects in my net and have examined them
microscopically. I found them all to be unimpregnated females; I have
never yet discovered a male among them. In some of the Diptera the males
emerge from the pupa state after the females; I therefore believe that
the females await the presence of the males, and, while waiting, pass
the time away in aerial gambols.

Forel, Lubbock, Kirby, Spence, and other naturalists have declared that
ants, on certain occasions, indulge in pastimes and amusements. Huber
says that he saw a colony of _pratensis_, one fine day, "assembled on
the surface of their nest, and behaving in a way that he could only
explain as simulating festival sports or other games."[67] On the 27th
of September last, the males and females of a colony of _Lasius flavus_
emerged from their nest; I saw these young kings and queens congregate
about the entrance of the nest and engage in playful antics until driven
away by the workers. The workers would nip their legs with their
mandibles until the royal offspring were forced to fly in order to
escape being bitten. The inciting cause of these movements may have been
sexual in character, but I hardly think so.

[67] Buechner, _Geistesleben der Thiere_, p. 163; quoted also by
Romanes, _loc. cit. ante_, pp. 87, 88.

On the 19th of July, 1894, I saw several _Lasius niger_ come out of
their nest accompanied by a minute beetle (_Claviger foveolatus_); the
ants caressed and played with this little insect for some time, and then
conducted it back into the nest.[68]

[68] On one occasion several years ago, I saw a number of young ants
of _L. niger_ brought out of the nest by five or six old ants, which
watched over the young and kept them from straying away. The young
ants played about the nest entrance for some time, and were then
conducted back into the hive by the old ants.--W.

Many such little animals are kept by the ants as pets. Lubbock says of
one of them, a species allied to _Podura_, and for which he proposes the
name _Beckia_, "It is an active, bustling, little being, and I have kept
hundreds, I may say thousands, in my nests. They run in and out among
the ants, keeping their antennae in a perpetual state of vibration."[69]
I have frequently noticed an insect belonging to the same genus as the
above in the nests of _F. fusca_ and _F. rufescens_. They reminded me
very much of the important-looking little dog