HYMENOPTERA. 167 



The animal food usually is some freshly-killed insect, 

 possibly killed by the foragers themselves. In one 

 instance the writer found four of the red-brown pave- 

 ment ants attempting to carry off one of the common 

 ground beetles that had evidently been stepped upon by 

 some passer-by. One of its legs stuck out sidewise in such 

 a position that it kept catching on everything, and finally 

 the four ant-draymen were brought up standing, with the 

 troublesome leg caught under a grass leaf lying on the 

 walk. Curiously enough, the four excited ants did not 

 resent or even seem to notice when their human friend 

 stooped down and poked the beetle around so as to free its 

 body ; but off the four started with their load, as triumph- 

 antly as if they had done the thing themselves. 



An ant nest, such as may be found in dooryards or 

 fields, may extend down two or three feet below the 

 ground surface, and contains scores of galleries with 

 narrower passages connecting, more intricate than the 

 famous catacombs, and taxing the ingenuity of even an 

 ant to find the way to the surface. There is but ' one 

 opening to the nest. At first there is but one ant mother, 

 and the nest is small; but as the broods multiply the 

 nest may become enormously enlarged. In an old ant 

 community there are usually many ant mothers. The 

 males and the females of a young ant community, or of 

 any branch community, come out of the pupae cases 

 winged; and their first feat is the accomplishment of the 

 nuptial flight or the marriage of the ants. Flying ants 

 are not especially agile, and are frequently eaten in large 

 numbers by insectivorous birds; but such females as 

 survive, pull off their own wings and scurry underground, 

 usually returning to the nest from which they took their 

 flight, though they may seek a new location. The males 



