HYMENOPTERA. 



383 



cunningly contrived by these industrious workers, who have received 

 from God alone their marvellous science. With no other tool than 

 their mandibles, the excavators work their way through the hardest 

 wood. They bore holes right through it, riddling it completely with 

 numerous storeys of horizontal galleries. The Yellow Ant raises its 

 little hillocks in fields, and passes the winter in a burrow or under- 

 ground dwelling-place. 



Independent of the principal entrances, there exist, in some 

 nests, masked doors guarded by sentinels. Many species also hollow 

 out covered galleries, which they only unmask in extreme danger, 

 either to open an outlet for the besieged, or to turn the enemy who 

 has already invaded the place. Ant-hills are, in fact, perfect fortresses^ 



Fig. 365. Larva of the Red Ant. 

 (Myrmica rubra.) 



Fig. 366. Pupa of the Red Ant (Myrmica 

 rubra) magnified. 



defended by a thousand ingenious contrivances, and guarded by 

 sentinels always on the qui vive. 



The domestic life of the different species is nearly the same. 

 The birth and rearing of the little ones, and the duties of the adults, 

 do not differ perceptibly from each other in the various species of 

 ants. The females live together in harmony. They lay, without 

 ceasing to walk about, white eggs of cylindrical form and microscopic 

 dimensions. The workers pick them up, and carry them to special 

 chambers. In a fortnight after the laying, the larva (Fig. 365) 

 appears. Its body is transparent. A head and wings can be made 

 out, but no legs ; the mouth is a retractile nipple, bordered by rudi- 

 mentary mandibles, into which the workers disgorge the juices they 

 have elaborated in their stomachs ; and as they lay by no provisions, 



