THE ANTS OR PISMIRES 



In the ants we meet a group every member of which is social. 

 All of them, except a few degenerate types mentioned in the 

 next chapter, are found in three castes, often of very different 

 appearance. These are the queen, the male and the worker; 

 in some ants the worker may be of two types and when these 

 are sharply different and do not intergrade, the larger one 

 with a larger head is known as the soldier. As a rule the 

 male is winged and often like one of the lower solitary wasps 

 in appearance. He does not long survive pairing and can be 

 found only during a short part of each season. The queen 

 is usually considerably larger than the other castes and is 

 also winged. The wings are, however, removed after the 

 marriage flight. The winged females are thus found only for 

 a short season, though the queen herself may be very long- 

 lived, sometimes surviving for fifteen years. The workers 

 are usually different from the queen both in colour and 

 structure. They do not possess wings, and the absence of 

 wing-muscles has led to a reduction in the size of the thorax 

 and a simplification of its structure. Often the eyes are very 

 small compared with those of the queen and in many species 

 they are minute or absent. 



Ants are much more flexible in their building habits than 

 bees or wasps, and they keep their brood piled in chambers, 

 not separated in cells. Most nests are built of soil or of small 

 vegetable fragments, and they are more easily adapted to 



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