THE CLEVER FAMILY OF ANTS 67 



on to the ants about him. When the nest is 

 finished it may measure as much as a yard in 

 every direction. It is usually built under a log 

 or something solid that serves as a roof and 

 reaches down to the ground. From a doorway 

 tunnels lead back into the nest, and there are 

 rooms at the end of these for the baby ants. 

 Everything — floors, ceiling, walls, and all — is 

 built of live ants holding firmly to one another. 

 Down the living halls the hunters run in and 

 out, carrying the food they have found to the 

 workers and baby ants inside. 



No one knows how these ants make their nests 

 so cleverly and well without any one to superin- 

 tend the whole task. It is one of the things that 

 ants have been doing so long that they do not 

 need to be taught how to do it, any more than a 

 baby needs to be taught how to cry. 



I never found any great number of the army 

 ants on the island. Perhaps when the waters of 

 the lake rose round the hill, the big armies were 

 off hunting in some other place. Perhaps they 

 prefer a climate that is still more rainy. I was 

 sorry not to see their wonderful nests, but the 

 little animals of Barro Colorado are safer than 

 they would be if they were penned up on the 

 island with armies of hungry Ecitons that had 

 to stay there, too. 



