2994 THE JOINTED ANIMALS 



Another robber ant (Formica sanguinea), not so well furnished with offensive 

 weapons, but larger and more intelligent than the former, also sallies forth in search 

 of slaves. Both may meet in combat on the march, and the dead and dying 

 mangled remains, and heads and legs nipped off, bear witness to the consequences. 

 These robber ants do not attack a nest with a rush, as do the Amazons. They lay 

 deliberate siege to it, surround it, securing the entrances and exits. None of the 

 inhabitants are allowed to pass if they carry pupae. 



Of the other inmates of ants' nests such as beetles, crickets, spiders, wood lice, 

 and the like, want of space forbids mention, and, indeed, the reason of their pres- 

 ence is not obvious. The supposition that they are kept as pets possibly derives 

 support merely from the analogy drawn from similar whims among human be- 

 ings. That ants sleep is an undoubted fact, and so too that they bestow much care 

 upon their toilet, assisting each other in this respect. Bates writes that ' ' here and 

 there an ant was seen stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed 

 and washed by one or more of its comrades, who performed the task by passing the 

 limb between the jaws and tongue, finishing off by giving the antennae a friendly 

 wipe." Recreations, too, are not unknown to them; running after each other in 

 hide-and-seek, followed often by a rough-and-tumble game. Stranger still, they 

 hide away the dead bodies of their friends in chinks and crevices far from the nest, 

 and thus perform a sort of burial. That the habit is more than the desire to be rid 

 of what is useless, or may be injurious, seems doubtful; unless, indeed, such device 

 lies at the root of all funeral customs, as is not improbable. 



Of the British species, the largest is the red wood ant (f. rufa). It abounds in 

 fir plantations in the southern counties of England, and the huge heaps of pine 

 needles it gathers over its nest are familiar objects to frequenters of the forests; 

 while the size, ferocity, and numbers of the ants themselves become a nuisance even 

 before their ways have ceased to be amusing. If the nest be disturbed, the fumes 

 of formic acid burst out full in the face of the intruder, while the jaws of the en- 

 raged inhabitants render further operations impossible. Numbers of nests, how- 

 ever, are annually ransacked of their pupae for young pheasants, which often seem 

 surprised by the flavor of the ants, which they pick up with the pupae. Highways 

 cross the paths in every direction around the nest, and the ants ma}' be seen coming 

 and going continuously throughout the day, bringing in twigs, caterpillars, and 

 fragments of all kinds of insects, to be safely stored away in the nest. Still larger 

 is the Hercules ant ( Camponotus herculeamis] , which inhabits wooded highlands in 

 continental Europe, and constructs its nest in decayed tree trunks. The female 

 measures more than half an inch in length; and the insects, when swarming, gather 

 in a cloud around the base of some tree. In color the body is glistening gray, 

 while the tips of the wings are yellow. The honey-pot ant (Myrmecocystzis mexi- 

 canus), of which the habits are alluded to above, inhabits the highlands of Mexico 

 and South Colorado. The nest is constructed in the ground, usually beneath hill- 

 ocks, in a gravelly soil, and contains passages and chambers arranged in different 

 stories, some for food, others for the larvae, and the third for the honey pots. The 

 inhabitants condemned to servitude in the honey-secreting department of this com- 

 munity are never allowed out. An allied species is found in Australia. Still more 



