A GUILD OF CARPENTER ANTS 



ters around the old centres, and expansion at the 

 margins. 



Entrance to the formicary was had by circular and 

 oblong doors pierced at irregular intervals in all sides 

 of the beam. They opened for the most part into 

 tubular, circuitous galleries communicating with the in- 

 terior. A few entered immediately upon spacious ves- 

 tibules. A vertical fissure in the beam several inches 

 long appeared to be the main avenue of communication 

 with the interior. At least, from this crack the workers 

 cast the sawdust rasped from the inside. These open- 

 ings served for ventilation as well as for entrance and 

 egress. 



Parts of this maze of vaults and chambers were 

 blackened, probably by the formic acid exuded by the 

 ants. Spacious as these quarters may seem (relatively), 

 they must have been greatly crowded; for enormous 

 numbers of larvae, pupse, eggs, and mature ants of all 

 castes were housed within them. How many specula- 

 tions arise as one pictures such a community carrying 

 on its varied and complex duties — excavating and shap- 

 ing roads and rooms, caring for queens and winged 

 sexes, collecting eggs, nursing and feeding the larvsc, 

 tending the pupae, "policing" the quarters, etc., and all 

 in what seems to us Cerberian darkness! What is the 

 quality of the light that penetrates these cavernous 

 domains and permits such work? Or is it controlled 

 by the sense of touch alone ? What must be the nature 

 of a vital organism adapted to such a Plutonian career 

 and equally and instantly to the free life in the sunny 

 open wherem is wrought the foraging for communal 

 supplies? For many and careful observations have 

 never detected the slightest "shock" or change of mau- 



123 



