AGRICULTURAL ANTS 



bee or wasp or hornet. Laborers could not be hired at 

 double wages to dig up the nests, and the investigator, 

 gloved, mufflered, booted, padded, with openings to 

 arms, and neck and legs heavily wrapped, had to wield 

 pick and spade and trowel, as well as sketch-book and 

 note-book, and attend to the plaster-casting by which 

 the rooms and galleries were fixed and thus accurate 

 outlines secured. 



Briefly, the interior formicary was found to be a 

 series of large chambers arranged in irregular stories 

 like the Roman catacombs, and connected at many 

 points by tubular galleries leading to the central gate. 

 Some of these caves were used as nurseries for eggs, 

 larvae, and antlings; some were occupied by the winged 

 queenlings and males, and by the fertile queens. But 

 many were granaries. Nearest the top were unhusked 

 seeds, such as the ants had been seen gathering. Far- 

 ther down were store-rooms of naked seeds, and these 

 were identified as ant-rice, needle-grass, buffalo-grass, 

 and various oily seeds or nuts, such as had been taken 

 from the workers in the field, and whose shells had been 

 found in the kitchen-midden. The demonstration was 

 complete as far as field observation could go. Pogono- 

 myrmex harbatus is a true harvester, a veritable "Agri- 

 cultural ant".' 



The excavation was necessarily slow, since the pur- 

 pose was to study the interior architecture and collect 

 material. This required to be done piecemeal and most 

 carefully, constantly guarding against the falling in of 

 the soil. Only a few feet in depth were therefore ac- 

 complished, but this sufficed. In one nest, however, 

 fortunately exposed by a deep cutting, the galleries and 

 chambers were traced to a depth of fifteen feet. One 



93 



