January, 1S6S. 



Hardwicke's Science Gossip. 



THE AGRICULTURAL ANT OF TEXAS. 



(Myrmica molrfaciens. )* 

 By Du. GIDEON LINCECUU. 



-j$f HIS is inodorous, 

 Apr-- having no smell of 

 p^sHp/® formic acid. It is 

 c *av. a large reddish- 

 f'vVv brown ant, dwells 

 Cut in tJie ground, is a 

 jL farmer, lives in 

 r e communities, which 

 7fl^ are often very 



populous, and con- 

 trolled by a perfect govern- 

 ment ; there are no idlers 

 amongst them. They build 

 paved cities, construct roads, 

 and sustain a large military 

 force. 



When one of the young 

 queens, or mother ants, comes 

 to maturity, and has received 

 the embraces of the male ant, 

 who immediately dies, she 

 goes out alone, selects a loca- 

 tion, and goes rapidly to work 

 excavating a hole in the 

 ground, digging and carrying 

 out the dirt with her mouth. As soon as she 

 has progressed far enough for her wings to strike 

 against the sides of the hole, she deliberately cuts 

 them off. She now, without further obstruction, 

 continues to deepen the hole to the depth of G or 7 

 inches, when she widens the bottom of it into a 

 suitable cell for depositing her eggs and nurturing 

 the young. She continues to labour outdoors and 

 in, until she has raised to maturity 20 to 30 workers, 

 when her labour 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 



* See Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia , 

 1S66, p. 323, for further particulars. 



No. 



37. 



different kingdoms two or three times a year 

 succeed in establishing a city. However, 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 by the mother ant during the period 

 of her personal labours, of the passage or gateway 

 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 earthworms, 

 until there is no way visible for them to enter ; and 

 the little litter is so ingeniously 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 surround- 

 ing 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 lit closely over the entire surface. This is 

 the case in sandy soil, where they can procure 

 coarse sand aud grit for the purpose, but in the 

 black prairie soil, where there is no sand, they con- 

 struct 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 



A 



