CARPENTER-ANTS. 247 



sions, both in width and depth, than those represented 

 by Hiiber in the preceding cut (page 245). What sur- 

 prised us the most was to see the tree growing vigor- 

 ously and fresh, though its roots were chiseled in all 

 directions by legions of workers, while every leaf, and 

 ever}^ inch of the bark, was also crowded by parties of 

 foragers. On one of the low branches we found a de- 

 serted nest of the white-throat {Sylvia cinerea, Temminck), 

 in the cavity of which they were piled upon one another 

 as close as the unhappy negroes in the hold of a slave- 

 ship ; but we could not discover what had attracted them 

 hither. Another dense group, collected on one of the 

 branches, led us to the discovery of a very singular oak 

 gall, formed on the 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. 

 (J.E.) 



Beside the jet-ant, several other 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.ficsca), at Black- 

 heath, in Kent, busil}^ 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 

 * Huber. 



