The Ants 



The life of an ant community is practically perpetual, thus 

 differing greatly from the community life of wasps and bumble- 

 bees. The nests vary greatly in form. Some ants occupy gal- 

 leries and chambers in the ground. Others make extensive 

 galleries and chambers in decaying wood. Others build mounds. 

 Still others construct nests of a paste-like substance, and in 

 tropical regions there are extraordinary variations in the manner 

 in which nests are built and in the material which composes the 

 nests. The ants themselves feed upon a great variety of sub- 

 stances. Under natural conditions they are both carnivorous and 

 vegetable feeders, eating various plant substances, fruit, and other 

 insects, as well as the dead bodies of higher animals. They are 

 especially fond of the sweet sap of certain trees, and of the 

 secretions of plant lice, of scale insects, and of certain leaf 

 hoppers and tree hoppers. In an old community the number of 

 ants may be very great, extending high into the hundreds of 

 thousands, and it is a matter of common observation that while 

 the ants of one community are perfectly able to recognize other 

 members of the same community, no matter how great their 

 number, they also recognize at once and either resent or have 

 nothing to do with members of other communities, even of the 

 same species. 



The battles of ants, the slave-making habits of certain species, 

 the extraordinary variety of the guest insects which are found in 

 ants' nests and their diverse functions in the community, the re- 

 lations of ants with plant lice and other insects which afford them 

 one of their articles of diet, have so often been described in other 

 works that it would be a vain repetition to dilate upon them here. 

 The strange facts connected with their agricultural pursuits, with 

 the occupation of mushroom-growing which is cultivated by cer- 

 tain species, the remarkable features of the lives of the honey ants 

 and, in fact, everything connected with ant economy offers most 

 fascinating reading, even to persons not especially interested in 

 nature. 



The honey ants deserve more than passing mention, even 

 though they are found in this country only in the far West and at 

 high elevations. The peculiarity of these creatures is that one 

 form has the abdomen distended the size of a currant and entirely 

 filled with grape sugar, or "honey." The nest is a low, gravel- 

 covered mound about six inches in diameter and two or three 



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