282 HENRY C. MC COOK, 



increase in the family, or both, require enlargement of the household 

 space. 



The ability of these ants to inflict loss upon man was a subject of 

 investij^ation. I have not confined myself to niy own observations and 

 inferences, but have inquired largely of lumbermen and mechanics, 

 and gentlemen of practical knowledge. Much information was re- 

 ceived from the miller and carpenter upon the Bell estate.* The 

 carpenter did not regard the damage done by the ants as serious, 

 being confined to the occasional spoiling of a saw-log. He had ob- 

 servL'd them, for the most part, in white pine, and thought that they 

 usually made entrance at a knot-hole, "sawyer" hole, or some bruised 

 or shattered point. He had found the nests at all heights, but thought 

 that when the ants build high up, the trees are usually sound. He 

 remembered one white pine tree the top of which had been cut well 

 nigh off by ants at the height of seventy-five feet from the ground, 

 and had been blown down from the weakening. The nest in the 

 mill-beam was about as large a one as he had seen. 



The miller had often seen the ants working in maple, and red oak, 

 but most frequently in pine. He had found the nests elevated twenty, 

 thirty feet, and higher; generally they were "pretty well up, ten, 

 twelve, fifteen feet." He had many limes come upon the nests in 

 logs when sawing in the mill. He had worked for some time upon 

 the mountains at making staves for " shook," and had seen very 

 frequently the loss of the blocks by the operations of the ants. He 

 had found in logs formicaries as long as six feet. The ants usually 

 take hold of some decayed part of the tree, but he had often found 

 them in wood perfectly sound. This is about the tenor of the testi- 

 mony which I gathered from various quarters. One statement may 

 be added, which I had no opportunity to verify, but was given me in 

 apparent sincerity. A young farmer upon the western slope of Brush 

 Mountain, said that a tract of oak tiinbor eight or ten acres in ex- 

 tent, belonging to his father, had been almost totally ruined by 

 these insects. 



Injuries of the kind and extent above reported certainly do not 

 entail serious loss, however inconvenient at times. But the thought 

 has arisen, might not such excavations as represented in this specimen 

 from the mill-beam bectnue very serious at times, as for example, in 

 the case of railroad bridges? We have only to suppose a colony of 

 the Pennsylvania Carpenter ants to be lodged and at work within 

 a bridge-beam of the size of this specimen, in order to suggest an 



* Messrs. Heltzel and Gesey. These men are fair representatives of our most 

 intelligent artisans, and showed the greatest interest in all my researches. 



