OUTLINES OE ENTOMOLOGY. 43 



In case of an accident to the nest, the safety of the larvte and 

 pupjB seems to be the first consideration, and the workers may be seen 

 running hither and thither in great distress with their delicate white 

 charges in their jaws, and which they will sacrifice their lives in the 

 effort to protect. 



Ants feed upon a variety of animal and vegetable substances, and 

 while very fond of sweets, are not, like bees and wasps, restricted in 

 their mature state, to a diet of pollen and nectar. Some species are 

 quite valuable as scavengers, rapidly disposing of carrion. 



A very good way of obtaining a perfectly clean skeleton of a bird 

 or other small animal is to place it near a large ants' nest. Every par- 

 ticle of flesh will soon be removed in the neatest" manner. There are 

 no species injurious to vegetation north of Florida, but in that State a 

 certain species ( Solonopsis Xyloni, McC) is said by Mr. Henry Hubbard 

 to " seriously injure the orange by gnawing away the bark and causing 

 an exudation of gum which seems, at certain seasons of the year, to 

 become one of its principal sources of food supply." In other sections 

 of the South this species makes reparation for such injuries by its 

 attacks on the cotton-worm, of which there is no room to doubt that 

 it kills great numbers. 



The Leaf cutters are mainly Mexican and South American species, 

 and are often very destructive to the foliage of the orange and other 

 valuable trees. Among these appears the singular form of workers, 

 distinguished as " soldiers," with enormously large heads and other 

 peculiar adaptations. These are the protectors of the nest in time of 

 danger, and take no part in other labors. Dr. McCook has also de- 

 scribed most entertainingly the habits of the Agricultural ant, which 

 clears the ground around its nest, sows it to a sort of grass which it in due 

 time harvests, storing the seeds in its nest. In Texas and Mexico also 

 occurs another very interesting species whose habits were investigated 

 and published by the same gentleman, viz., the Honey ant. In the 

 formicaries of this species, certain workers have the power of secreting 

 honey from their food. This collects in the abdomen until the latter 

 becomes enormously enlarged and the insect is incapable of dragging 

 the heavy weight, and has to be fed by the less distended workers. 

 This honey is not disgorged into cells, but is taken direct*' from the 

 insect by the other inmates of the nest, and when the secretion is 

 entirely exhausted the creature perishes. 



Instead depending on members of their own colony for their 

 sweets, some of our indigenous species domesticate in their nests cer- 

 tain root-feeding plant lice fA2Jhides J, \vhich have been called the "ants' 

 cows," because of the sweet fluid which they yield from their nectar 

 tubes when caressed by the ant's antennte. Indeed, all these nectar- 



