ANTS. 



which for at least t\\o years had occupied a nest directly in front of 

 my house in Austin, Texas. In the autumn of the third year when 

 certain workers decided to establish a new nest in a vacant lot about 

 seventy feet away. I observed that it required nearly three weeks to 

 overcome the attachment of all the workers to their old home. 



Fore! and Kscherich ( 1906) distinguish two types of ant-nests, the 

 temporary and the permanent, but this does not involve corresponding 

 differences in architecture. The same is true of Forel's convenient 

 distinction of monodomous and polydomous colonies. The nest of a 

 nionodomous colony is a circumscribed unit, whereas a polydomous 

 colon}-, as the name implies, spreads over several nests, the inhabitants 

 of which remain in communication with one another and may visit back 

 and forth. This may lead to the development of accessory structures, 

 like covered runways, but in other respects the architecture is merely 

 a repetition of that of the simple nest. For convenience we may adopt 

 the following classification : 



A. X T ests in the Soil. 



a. Small crater nests. 



b. Large crater nests. 



c. Mound or hill nests. 



d. Masonry domes. 



e. Xests under stones, logs, etc. 



B. Xests in the Cavities of Plants. 



T. Xests in preformed cavities of living plants. 



a. In hollow stems. 



b. In hollow thorns. 



c. In tillandsias. 



d. In hollow bulbs. 



2. Xests in woody plant-tissues, often in cavities wholly or in 

 part excavated by other insects. 



a. In or under bark. 



b. In twigs. 



c. In tree-trunks. 



d. In galls, pine-cones, seed-pods, etc. 



C. Suspended Xests. 



a. Suspended earthen nests. 



b. Carton nests. 



c. Silken nests. 



D. Xests in Unusual Sites ( in houses, etc.). 



