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MISSOURI AGRICULTUPAL REPORT. 



dividuals in a colony. In figure 13 we have represented enlarged four 

 and one-half diameters, the fully developed, winged female, at the time 

 she is able to leave the nest and fly in the air as a winged creature. 



The nests of these little red ants will be found in great abundance 

 along paths, roadsides, through fields, and especially in the corn field, 

 where they make little holes in the ground, near the entrance of which 

 one finds a little bunch of earth which the insects have carried out in 

 making their subterranean tunnels, which radiate through the earth for 

 about one and one-half feet in diameter and about seven or eight inches 

 in depth. These ants have the habit of making their nests about the 

 roots of the corn plant, and the roots are exposed in their chambers and 

 run-ways, and upon these roots live the aphids, which lay the winter eggs 

 above described. When they wish to deposit their eggs, they are very 

 apt to leave the roots and wander about the chambers and tunnels of 

 these little red ants and deposit their eggs here and there as they walk 

 along. These ants gather the eggs that the aphids have deposited and 

 store them in masses in their chambers which they have excavated, and 

 there watch them and guard them throughout the winter. During warm, 

 sunny days they will carry these aphid eggs up near the surface so that 

 they may become warm, sometimes putting them out and exposing them 

 to the sun and taking them down again at night or during stormy 

 weather, and during cold weather, placing them in the lowest chambers. 



Fig. 13. — Lasius niger alienus, female; enlarged four and one-half diameters. 



apparently trying to keep them away from the excessive cold. They 

 watch over and take care of these eggs until they hatch in the spring of 

 the year. These eggs always hatch into wingless, agamic females, which 

 bring forth living young without the appearance of males. 



When these eggs hatch in the spring, the ants burrow down among 

 the roots of smart-weed, which always springs up in the corn field long 



