MASOX-ANTS. 223 



digging ill the ground, and forming structures with pellets 

 of moistened loam, clay, or sand. 



Mason-Ants. 



We have used, in the preceding pages, the terms mason- 

 bees and mason-wasps, for insects which build their nests of 

 earthy materials. On the same principle, we have followed 

 the ingenious M. Huber the younger, in employing the 

 term mason-ants for those whose nests on the exterior 

 appear to be hillocks of earth, without the admixture of 

 other materials, whilst in the interior they present a series 

 of labyrinths, lodges, vaults, and galleries constructed with 

 considerable skill. Of these mason-ants, as of the mason- 

 wasps and bees already described, there are several species, 

 differing from one another in their skill in the art of 

 architecture. 



One of the most common of the ant-masons is the turf- 

 ant (Formica ccespitum, Latr.), which is very small and of a 

 blackish-brown colour. Its architecture is not upon quite 

 so extensive a scale as some of the others ; but, though 

 slight, it is very ingenious. Sometimes they make choice 

 of the shelter of a flat stone or other covering, beneath 

 which they hollow out chambers and communicating 

 galleries ; at other times they are contented with the open 

 ground ; but most commonly they select a tuft of grass or 

 other herbage, the stems of which serve for columns to their 

 earthen walls. 



We had a small colony of these ants accidentally esta- 

 blished in a flower-pot, in which we were rearing some 

 young plants of the tiger-lily (Lilium figrinum'), the stems of 

 which being stronger than the grass where they usually 

 build, enabled them to rear their edifice higher, and also 

 to make it more secure, than they otherwise might. It was 

 wholly formed of small grains of moist earth, piled up 

 between the stems of the lily without any apparent cement ; 

 indeed it has been ascertained by Huber, as we shall after- 

 wards see, that they use no cement beside water. This is 

 not always to be procured, as they depend altogether on 

 rains and dew ; but they possess the art of joining grains 



