324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



bottom of it into a suitable cell for depositing her eggs and nurturing the 

 young. She continues to labor out-doors and in, until she has raised to ma- 

 turity' 20 to 30 workers, when her labor ceases, and she remains in the cells, 

 supplying the eggs for coming millions, and her kingdom has commenced. 

 But very few of the thousands of mother ants that swarm out from the differ- 

 ent kingdoms two or three times a year succeed in establishing a city. How- 

 ever, when one does succeed in rearing a sufficient number of workers to carry 

 on the business, she entrusts the management of the national works to them, 

 and is seen no more outside. 



The workers all seem to understand the duties assigned to them, and will 

 perform them or die in the effort. 



The workers increase the concealment, which had been kept up by the 

 mot her ant during the period of her personal labors, of the passage, or gate- 

 way to their city, by dragging up and covering it with bits of stick, straw and 

 the hard black pellets of earth, which are thrown up by the earth worms, un- 

 til there is no way visible for them to enter ; and the little litter is so ingeni- 

 ously placed, that it has more the appearance of having been drifted together 

 by the wind than to have been the work of design. 



In about a year and a half, when the numbers of the community have greatly 

 increased, and they feel able to sustain themselves among the surrounding 

 nations, they throw off their concealment, clear away the grass, herbage and 

 other litter to the distance of 3 or 4 feet around the entrance to their city, 

 construct a pavement, organize an efficient police, and, thus established, 

 proclaim themselves an independent city. The pavement, which is always 

 kept very clean, consists of a pretty hard crust about half an inch thick, and 

 is formed by selecting and laying such grits and particles of sand as will fit 

 closely over the entire surface. This is the case in sandy soil, where they can 

 procure coarse sand and grit for the purpose, but in the black prairie soil, 

 where there is no sand, they construct the pavement by levelling and smoothing 

 the surface and suffering it to bake in the sunshine, when it becomes very 

 hard and firm. That both forms of these pavements are the work of a well 

 planned design, there can be no doubt with the careful investigator. All the 

 communities of this species select their homes in the open sunshine, and con- 

 struct pavements. Their pavements are always circular and constructed pretty 

 much on the same plan. During the ten years drouth that prevailed here, and 

 which seemed very favorable to the increase of this species of ant, they suf- 

 fered their pavements to remain fiat, sometimes even basin-form. But the 

 drouth could not continue always. The rain, which would be certain to drown 

 the ants should it come upon their flat and basin-form pavements, would re- 

 turn again some day, and they seemed to know when this much dreaded event 

 would occur. At least six months previous to the coming of the rain, they 

 .commenced, universally, building up mounds in the center of the. pavements. 

 'To these mounds in the prairie they brought the little pellets of earth, thrown 

 to the surface by the earth worms, and piled them up into a circular mound a 

 foot or more in height. In sandy soil it is constructed of coarse sand, and in 

 rocky situations they build it of gravel, and the pieces are so large, and the 

 .mound so high (18 inches to 2 feet, with a four feet base) that the beholder is 

 .overwhelmed with wonder. I know of one of these stone pyramids nearly 3 

 feet high and 5 to G feet base, in which there are many little fragments of stone, 

 . some of them carried to the very top, any one of which would weigh more 

 than 25 ants. Internally the ant mound contains many neatly constructed 

 cells, the floors of which are horizontal ; and into these cells the eggs, young 

 ones, and their stores of grain are carried in time of rainy seasons. 



The mound itself, and the surface of the ground around it, to the distance 



of four or five feet, sometimes more, from the center, is kept very clean, like a 



pavement. Everything that happens to be dropped upon the pavement is cut 



,to pieces and carried away. The largest dropping from the cows will, in a 



: short time, he removed. I have placed a large corn-stalk on the pavement, 



[Nov. 



