PORTABLE ANT-NESTS. 



ADELE M. FIELDE. 



Portable ant-nests, constructed by me in the summer of 1900, 

 were described in BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN, No. 2 of Vol. II., which 

 is now out of print. Improvements that have since been made in 

 them, and their present use by myrmicologists in America, 

 Europe and Africa, justify a new statement of the method of 

 making them. I have now ants that have lived in them, without 

 earth, for three years, in health and apparent contentment. 



The floor of the nest is a pane of double-thick, transparent 

 glass. This is laid upon very thick, white blotting paper, giving 

 an elastic bed to the pane of glass and the best background for 

 observation of the ants. The paper has just the area of the glass, 

 but is not fastened thereto. 



The outer walls of the nest are laid a quarter inch, or six mil- 

 limeters, from the edge of the pane. They consist of two strips 

 of double-thick glass, a half inch, or thirteen millimeters, wide, 

 the one strip superimposed on the other. Both are held in place 

 by crockery cement. 1 The wall is smoothly laid up, with no in- 

 terstices where an ant may hide or escape. 



The partitions are double the width of the wall, which they 

 otherwise copy. At one end of every partition a space is left 

 whereby the ants may pass from room to room. This passage- 

 way is covered by a thin celluloid film or a piece of mica. It is 

 desirable that this covering be transparent, so that the passage- 

 way underneath it may be scanned from above, on lifting the end 

 of the toweling which is to overlay it. 



After the cement is well dried, the edge of the floor-pane and 

 the outside of the walls are covered with a fabric impervious to 

 light. Cloth serves better for this purpose than does paper, the 

 edges of the nest being subject to much handling. Le Page's or 



1 The use of cement instead of glue was recommended by Dr. W. M. Wheeler. 

 Diamond, Major's or any reliable kind may be used. I have merged in water, for 

 two weeks, a nest constructed with Major's cement, without loosening its parts. The 

 directions accompanying the selected cement should be followed 



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