2 1 6 The Scottish Naturalist. 



THE NEST OF FORMICA RUFA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 



By F. BUCHANAN WHITE, M.D. 



F 



ROM the earliest times ants have attracted the attention of 

 all observers of nature. 



parcum genus est, patiensque laboris, 



Quaesitique tenax, et quod quaesita reservet," 



sings Virgil. Aristotle, the learned Greek, has recorded his 

 observations of their habits; and the mighty king whose wisdom 

 "excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, 

 and all the wisdom of Egypt," who " spake of beasts, and of 

 fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes," not only shows his 

 intimate acquaintance with the doings of the ants, but deduces 

 therefrom a profound moral lesson : " Go to the ant, thou 

 sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise." 



Following, then, the advice of Solomon, let us devote a few 

 lines to a consideration of the hill-ant (Formica rufa), the 

 habitation that it constructs, and the guests, invited or uninvited, 

 that take shelter therein. 



In the first place we will take a look at the nest. If we 

 were to go to some of the wooded highland districts of Scot- 

 land, such as the neighbourhood of Loch Tummel or Loch 

 Rannoch, our attention as naturalists would certainly be 

 attracted by heaped-up masses of dead leaves, twigs, and 

 straws, resembling in shape large mole-hills or small haycocks, 

 and varying in size from one to four feet in height, and from 

 three to twenty-five feet or to in circumference. A closer 

 examination would show us that these heaps were tenanted by 

 an immense number of brownish ants, and were provided near 

 the top with a number of apertures, through which the inhabi- 

 tants were going in and out. These structures are known as 

 ant-hills, and the ant which constructs and inhabits them is 

 consequently known by the name of the hill-ant, which name 

 was given to it by an intelligent observer, Gould, who published 

 an "Account of English Ants" in 1747, long before either 

 Linne or De Geer had written upon the subject. 



The hills are constructed of various substances, — leaves, 

 twigs, dried grass, small stones, &c, all. entering into their 

 composition. Often, however, they are made for most part of 



