A GUILD OF CARPENTER ANTS 



a wide exchange of experiences. But something may 

 be contributed towards a conclusion. Carpenters, lum- 

 bermen, and others who had lived and wrought in the 

 mountain forests were questioned. One thought that 

 the injury done was not serious, being confined to occa- 

 sional spoiling of a saw-log. He had seen the ants for 

 the most part in white pine (although they infest maple, 

 cedar, and oak), and thought that they usually made 

 entrance at a knot- 

 hole or some bruised 

 or shattered part. He 

 had found the nests 

 at all heights, and 

 believed that when 

 the ants build high 

 the trees occupied are 

 usually sound. He 

 had seen one white 

 pine whose top was so 

 weakened by the ants, 

 seventy-five feet from 

 the ground, that it was 

 broken off by the wind . 

 The miller's experi- 

 ence was either wider 

 than his fellows' or 

 he had been a more 

 careful observer. He 

 had often found the 

 ants nested in trees 

 at heights from ten 



to thirty feet. He had many times come upon the 

 nests in logs, some formicaries six feet long, while man- 



125 



VIEW OF THE CEILING OF ROOF OF A 

 CARPENTER ANT's NEST 



