RELATION BETWEEN ANTS. 165 
When the ants are displeased with the 
city they have chosen, they quit it for a 
third, and pass sometimes even to a 
fourth, where they definitively fix. We 
even see them very frequently return to 
the ancient nest before being fully es- 
tablished in the new. ‘The recruiting 
then takes place in a contrary direction, 
and the couples meet each other in the 
same road, but the last has always the 
advantage over the preceding emigra- 
tions. 
When the new ant-hill is at a consider- 
able distance from the old, the ants com- 
monly establish some intermediate resi- 
dence, in which they deposit the recruits, 
the larvee, the males, and the females, 
which they are unable to carry in one 
journey to their proper destination. I 
have seen several of these relays establish- 
ed upon the same route; they consisted 
of cavities piercedin the earth, containing 
sufficiently spacious apartments, generally 
covered with fragments of straw, and 
resembling small ant-hills. We might 
