iv SOCIAL HOMES 143 



surface of the ground. The Occident also shuts its 

 gates in the evening, and on the occurrence of a 

 storm ; it re-opens them late in the morning. Its 

 labours it confines to the daylight hours. 



In form and plan the interior follows closely 

 that of the Texas Agriculturalist ; in fact a 

 striking resemblance in this respect exists among all 

 these ants. The rooms, mere lateral expansions of 

 the galleries, measure at most about three and a half 

 inches in width, their greatest length is about five or 

 six inches. The galleries are cylindrical, and of 

 various lengths, and rarely exceed a diameter of half 

 an inch. The apartments seldom extend beyond the 

 limits of the " clearing," and chiefly underlie the cone 

 itself. Dr. McCook ascertained that they descend to 

 a depth of between eight and nine feet ! Many of 

 them are granaries ; a single room has been found to 

 contain seed to the amount of two tablespoonfuls. 

 These deposits seem to clearly prove the harvesting 

 proclivities of the Occident Ant, and beyond doubt the 

 harvest is reaped for food. Dr. McCook, when engaged 

 inexaminingthese formicaries, came upon rooms packed 

 full of gravel, a circumstance attributed by him to a 

 division of labour among the ants in their herculean 

 mining. He conjectures that it is here the pebbles 

 are carried by those labourers who cut them away from 

 the soil in which they are embedded, when making 

 the deep chambers ; while a second gang thence trans- 

 ports them to the upper regions, and arranges them 

 upon the cone. Some, however, Dr. McCook says, 

 were not simple dumping-rooms to prevent stagnation 

 of work, but veritable lumber-rooms, emmetonian 



