CARPENTER-ANTS. 283 



bark in the shape of a pointed cone, and crowded 

 together. It is probable that the juice which they 

 extracted from these galls was much to their taste.* 



Besides the jet-ant, several ether species exercise 

 the art of carpentry, — nay, what is more wonderful 

 still, they have the ingenuity to knead up, with 

 spiders' web for a cement, the chips which they 

 chisel out into a material with which they construct 

 entire chambers. The species which exercise this 

 singular art are the Ethiopian {Formica nigra) and 

 the yellow ant {F.flava)/]' 



We once observed the dusky ants {F.fiisca), at 

 Blackheath in Kent, busily employed in carrying out 

 chips from the interior of a decaying black poplar, 

 at the root of which a colony was established; but, 

 though it thence appears that this species can chisel 

 wood if they choose, yet they usually burrow in the 

 earth, and by preference, as we have remarked, at the 

 root of a tree^ the leaves of which supply them with 

 food. 



Among the foreign ants, we may mention a small 

 yellow ant of South America, described by Dampier, 

 which seems, from his account, to construct a nest 

 of green leaves. " Their sting," he says, " is like 

 a spark of fire; and they are so thick among the 

 boughs in some places, that one shall be covered with 

 them before he is aware. These creatures have nests 

 on great trees, placed on the body between the limbs: 

 some of their nests are as big as a hogshead. This 

 is their winter habitation; for in the wet season fhey 

 all repair to these their cities, where they preserve 

 their eggs. In the dry season, when they leave their 

 nests, they swarm all over the v/oodlands, for they 

 never trouble the savannahs. Great paths, three or 

 ^ J. R. t Huber. 



