HOW LONG ANTS USE SAME HOUSE 75 



in the sand and live in the quiet desert, or under a rail- 

 road track in the constant thunder and jar of great passing 

 trains." 



DOROTHY. Some one of you said there are more ants 

 in many a county than people in this whole country. 



CECIL. Why, I think there are as many ants in a 

 hundred little towns, each of a thousand families of people, 

 as there are people in the whole world. 



DOROTHY. You forget there are 1,700,000,000 people 

 in the world. 



CECIL. I think there are 13,000 ants in this town for 

 every family of people living in it, and there are only a 

 few ants here. Suppose we have one thousand families of 

 people here. Now multiply 13,000 by 1,000. A hundred 

 such towns would give 1,300,000,000. 



DOROTHY. I can hardly believe this. 



CECIL. Why, one book speaks of a single colony having 

 500,000 ants in it. Two hundred such colonies would equal 

 the population of the United States. Of course, the ant 

 colonies around here are small. 



DOROTHY. How many Carpenters in a completed 

 colony? 



CECIL. About 2,000, the books say. 



KENNETH. How long may the same colony use a nest? 



CECIL. I guess there is no particular time, but ants 

 have been known to use the same nest forty years. 



ALBERT. How many kinds of Harvester ants in Cali- 

 fornia, and what's the population of a colony? 



ANT. There are six kinds in this state, and the number 

 in a colony of our kind around here ranges from 4,000 

 down. The Harvesters are the most common ants of the 

 plains and foothills. Some of the nests well up in the 

 Sierras may be seen for miles. These ants are very easily 



