THE ANT. 365 



though laid upon a black ground, it can scarcely oe discerned. 

 The little white bodies we see are the young animals in their 

 maggot state, endued with life, long since freed from the egg, 

 and often involved in a cone, w hich it has spun round itself, 



the nest, some others issued from time to time from under the margrin of 

 their little roofs formed at the entiaiice of the galleries : others afterwards 

 came forth, who began removing the wooden bars that blockaded the en- 

 trance, in which they readUy succeeded. This labour occupied them seve- 

 ral hours. The passages were at length free, and the materials with whid 

 they had been closed, scattered here and there over the ant-hill. Everj 

 day, morning and evening, during the fine weather, I was a witness to si- 

 milar proceedings. On days of rain the doors of all the ant-hills remained 

 closed. When the sky was cloudy in the morning, or rain was indicated, 

 the ants, who seemed to be aware of it, opened but in part their several 

 avenues, and immediately closed them when the rain commenced." 



The galleries and chambers wljich are roofed in as thus described, are 

 very similar to those of the mason-ants, being partly excavated in the earth, 

 and partly built with the clay thence procured. It is in these they pass the 

 night, and also the colder months of the winter, when they become torpid 

 or nearly so, and of course require not the winter granaries of corn with 

 which the ancients fabulously furnished them. 



'i'he Carpenter. Ants, or ants that work in wood, perform much more ex. 

 tensive operations than any of the other carpenter insects. Their only 

 tools, like those of bees and wasps, are their jaws or mandibles; but though 

 these may not appear so cuiiously constructed as the ovipositor file of the 

 tree-hopper, or the rasp and saw of the saw-flies, they are no less efficient 

 in the performance of what is required. Among the carpenter-ants the em- 

 met or jet-ant holds the first rank, and is easily known by being rather less 

 in size than the wood -ant, and by its fine shining black coloiu". It is less 

 common in Britain than the others, though its colonies may occasionally be 

 met with in the trunks of decaying oak or willow trees in hedges. 



Among the foreign ants, we may mention a small yellow ant of South 

 America, described by Dampier, which seems, from his account, to con- 

 struct a nest of green leaves. " Their sting," he says, " is like a spark of 

 fire ; and they are so thick among the boughs in some places, that one shall 

 be covered with them before he is aware. I'hese creatures have nests on 

 great trees, placed on the body between the limbs : some of their nests are 

 as big as a hogshead. This is their winter haljitation ; for in the wet sea- 

 son they all repair to these their cities, where they preserve their eggs. In 

 the dry season, when they leave their nests, they swarm all over the wood, 

 lands, for they never trouble the savannahs. Great paths, three or four 

 inches broad, made by them, may be seen in the woods, i hey go out light, 

 but bring home heavy loads on their backs, all of the same substance, and 

 equal in size. 1 never ob^^erved any thing besides pieces of green leaves, so 

 big that I could scarcely see the insect for his burden ; yet they would 

 march stoutly, and so many were pressing forward that it was a very pretty 

 sight, for the path looked perfectly green with them." 



Ants observed in New South Wales, by the gentlemen in the expedition 

 luider Captain Cook, are still more interesting. " Some," we are told, " are 



