330 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packaed. 



The workers hibernate, rarely the females, and in spring take 

 care of the eggs and larvse produced the previous autumn. 

 In the course of the summer the males and females appear, 

 and late in summer on warm days they fly in the air in 

 swarras. After the nuptial flight, the females may be seen 

 running about on the ground biting their wings off. They 

 enter tlie ground, sometimes the old holes, and lay their eggs 

 and then die. The nests of some species of ants contain 

 several thousand individuals. There are no species of true 

 ants which construct such complex nests as the Termites, but 

 in the sociability displayed by them, their love for their own 

 kind and interest shown in other insects, they far surpass 

 their prototypes, the white ants, and evince a psychological 

 development that has a human element in it, which ap[)ears 

 to be superior and superadded to the usual law of self-pres- 

 ervation and selfish instincts controlling the lower animals, 



I shall not dwell on the ordinary life of the colony, as the 

 history of the formicarium is given in entomological works. 

 It may be observed, however, that the ants simply place 

 their 3'oung in underground holes, not building cells for them 

 as do the wasps and bees, and that the workers are undevel- 

 oped females, while in the Termites, the laborers are unde- 

 veloped individuals of both sexes. 



We will now glance at some of the liabits of ants which 

 are the result of their living in crowded communities, but 

 are not characteristics necessary for the preservation of each 

 and every species. 



One trait sometimes manifested in a prosperous and rich 

 community of men is the oppression and enslavement of their 

 weaker neighbors. So well-to-do, luxurious colonies of ants 

 go on foraging expeditions, and each member of the party 

 brings home in his jaws a sable ant. Our common red ant, 

 Formica sangninea, which builds high hills in the woods, is 

 known to enslave a negro ant. How in one instance this 

 operates on the captors is seen in the case of the Pohjergus 



10 



