CLASS INSECTA: ORDEK HYMENOPTERA. 209 



b a 



a. Egg ; b. Larva ; c. Pupa of Ants ; d. Ponera grandis, Giant Ant ; 

 P. Formica sanguina, Red Ant ; G. Myrmeda forflcdta ; H. Mntitta cepkaldtos. 



looking grains about, an erroneous idea has arisen that the am* lay up food for 

 winter. The habits of the various species are well worth study. The Agricultural 

 Ants of Texas have a tiny farm, where they cultivate a plant (Arisfida stricta} whoee 

 seed they harvest. The Sanguinary Ants are warriors. They rob their neighbo- s 

 and reduce their captives to abject slavery, compelling them to do all their work for 

 them, " to lick them, brush them, carry them on their back, and feed them." The 

 Foraging Ants hunt in vast armies, clearing the region they traverse of every wing- 

 less insect. They build covered ways for the advance of their columns, and in one 

 case constructed across a chasm a tubular bridge one-half an inch in diameter and 

 twelve inches long. The Leaf-cutting Ants dig wells in search of water, sometimes 

 thirty feet deep. In one place they dug a tunnel under the river Parahyba. In pome 

 parts of Brazil they render agriculture almost impossible ; they undermine buildings, 

 carry off provisions by night, and strip a tree of all its leaves in a day. The White 

 Ants (a Neuropterous insect, Termes betticosus} of the tropics, erect conical hills 

 twelve feet high, and so strong that the buffaloes use them for watch-towers. They 

 destroy furniture and even houses. They have been known in a single night to 

 ascend a table-leg, eat the contents of a trunk on top, and descend through another 

 leg. The female lays 80,000 eggs in a day, yet in spite of this fecundity their number 

 is kept down, because man and beast alike feed upon them as a dainty. Read Bell's 

 " Naturalist in Nicaragua," Popular Science Monthly, July, 1875, Bates's " Natural- 

 ist on the Amazon," Figuier's u Insect World," etc. 



