NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



fight off the winged hosts, and those in charge of the 

 hay-wagon abandon for the time the stack which is 

 being hauled to the barn, on account of the annoying 

 creatures. The same is true of the grain harvest which 

 comes later, the appearance of the swarms continuing 

 throughout August and into September. 



The ants, however, do not sting, my informant 

 averred. The nervous irritation produced by contact 

 with such numbers is the chief annoyance. Some horses 

 show great excitement under the visits of the swarms, 

 to which the more stolid mule is quite indifferent. 

 These flying ants do not get angry when beaten off, 

 and rush at and follow after the parties attacking them, 

 as bees do. They whirl round and round in dense 

 masses, alight upon an object within their path, but 

 show no sign of hostility, or wish to pursue human or 

 other animals who approach them. The family of ants 

 to which this genus (Formica) belongs, has no members 

 possessed of true aculeate organs. The so-called 

 "sting" is really produced by the insect "biting" or 

 abrading the skin with its mandibles, and then ejecting 

 formic acid from its undeveloped stinging organs into 

 the wound. The smart of the acid is quite severe. All 

 this may have changed in the last twenty years/ but 

 the facts are given above as they then existed. 



Mr. W. C. Prime, well known as an author and editor, 

 described for me and subsequently published the ac- 

 count^ of a swarm of ants seen by him on Lone- 

 some and Profile lakes, two small waters in the White 



' See my paper on this ant in Proceedings, Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Philadelphia (1884), p. 57 sqq. 



^ New York Journal of Commerce, September 24, 1880. See also 

 Proceedings, Academjr of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



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