Mason-Ants. 279 



MASON-ANTS. 



We have used in the preceding pages the terms mason-bees 

 and mason-wasps, for insects which build their nests of earthy 

 materials. On the same principle, we have followed the 

 ingenious M. Huber the younger, in employing the term 

 mason-ants for those whose nests on the exterior appear to be 

 hillocks of earth, without the admixture of other materials, 

 whilst in the interior they present a series of labyrinths, 

 lodges, vaults, and galleries constructed with considerable 

 skill. Of these mason-ants, as of the mason-wasps and bees 

 already described, there are several species, differing from 

 one another in their skill in the art of architecture. 



One of the most common of the ant-masons is the turf-ant 

 (Formica ccespitum, LATH.), which is very small and of a 

 blackish-brown colour. Its architecture is not upon quite 

 so extensive a scale as some of the others ; but, though slight, 

 it is very ingenious. Sometimes they make choice of the 

 shelter of a flat stone or other covering, beneath which they 

 hollow out chambers and communicating galleries ; at other 

 times they are contented with the open ground ; but most 

 commonly they select a tuft of grass or other herbage, the 

 stems of which serve for columns to their earthen walls. 



We had a small colony of these ants accidentally established 

 in a flower-pot, in which we were rearing some young plants 

 of the tiger-lily (Lilium tigrinum), the stems of which being 

 stronger than the grass where they usually build, enabled 

 them to rear their edifice higher, and also to make it more 

 secure, than they otherwise might. It was wholly formed 

 of small grains of moist earth, piled up between the stems of 

 the lily without any apparent cement ; indeed it has been 

 ascertained by Huber, as we shall afterwards see, that they 

 use no cement beside water. This is not always to be pro- 

 cured, as they depend altogether on rains and dew ; but they 

 possess the art of joining grains of dry sand so as to support 

 one another, on some similar principle, no doubt, to that of 

 the arch. 



