578 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



by earthen craters or dome-shaped mounds, or " hills." The latter 

 are perforated with cavities which serve as incubators for the 

 young, that is, for the minute eggs, the legless, grub-like larvae, 

 and the pupae. The pupae are either naked or enclosed in ellip- 

 tical cocoons which are spun by the mature larvae. 



Many species of ants harbor in their nests messmates or para- 

 sites belonging "to various groups of insects. Some of these so- 

 called myrmecophiles are fed and cared for by the ants, others 

 prey upon the ants or their brood. Certain species of ants may 

 themselves become parasitic on other ants. A few of these para- 

 sitic species have lost their worker caste completely, and are, 

 therefore, represented only by male and female individuals like 

 the non-social Hymenoptera. 



The food of ants consists primarily of other insects found dead 

 or in a moribund or helpless condition on the ground or vegeta- 

 tion. Many species, however, feed on honey-dew, and either col- 

 lect this sweet liquid directly from the plant-lice and scale insects 

 of which it is the excrement, or lap it up from the surfaces of 

 the leaves on which it has fallen. Ants are, on the whole, bene- 

 ficial insects, since they consume enormous numbers of dead and 

 decomposing organisms. Many of the less abundant species are 

 neither beneficial nor noxious. A few, like the little red house- 

 ant (Monomorium pharaonis) and the large black carpenter-ant 

 (Camponotus pennsylvanicus), are sometimes a pest in houses. 

 Both of these species are very fond of feeding on sweets in pan- 

 tries, kitchens, etc., and the carpenter-ant also has the injurious 

 habit of excavating its galleries in the beams and rafters of houses. 

 A few species, like the garden ant (Lasius americanus) and the 

 silky ant {Formica subsericea), disfigure lawns and garden beds 

 with their burrows and craters. . 



The following list of ants occurring in Connecticut has beer 

 prepared at the suggestion of Dr. W. E. Britton from material 

 collected by himself, Mr. H. L. Viereck, and others in various 

 parts of the state, and from my own collections made during 

 several summers in the vicinity of Colebrook, Winsted, and Nor- 

 folk in the Litchfield Hills. This list is probably very incom- 

 plete, as I have found several species in adjacent portions of New 

 York (ft g., near White Plains), not represented in the material 

 from Connecticut. Previous authors have recorded from the 



