HYMENOPTEEA. 



381 



Ants liave a slim body on long legs. The workers are stouter 

 and smaller than the males ; and these last are smaller than the 

 females. The males have large and prominent eyes, whilst the 

 eyes of the workers and females are small. 



Ants are provided with antennae, bent in the form of an 

 elbow, with which they examine everything they meet, and 

 which seem to assist them in the communication of their ideas. 

 Two horny, very strong mandibles serve them at the same time as 

 pincers, tweezers, scissors, pick- axe, fork, and sword. A thin, 

 short neck joins the head to the thorax, to which, in the case of 

 the males and females, are attached four large veiny wings. The 

 workers only have no wings. Of the three pair of legs, the 

 hind ones are the longest. Each pair is armed with a spur, 

 and fringed with very short hairs, which serve the purpose of 

 brushes. The abdomen, fat, short, oval, or square, is always most 

 voluminous in the females. 



There are three genera of ants which we shall mention. The 

 Myrmicce have two knobs to the pedicle, by which the abdomen is 

 attached to the thorax ; the Ponerce only one. In these two 

 genera, the females and the neuters have a sting, and the larvae 



Fig. 359. Red ant. Male magnified 

 (Myrntica rvfa). 



Fig. 



3. Red ant. Worker magnified 

 (Myrmica rufa). 



do not spin a cocoon in which to change into pupa. Lastly, 

 the Formica, ants property so called, have but one knob on the 

 pedicle of the abdomen, as in Ponera ; their larvae spin a silky 

 cocoon. They have no sting, but they pour into the wounds 

 made by their mandibles an acid liquor, the pungent smell of 

 which is well known. This liquid is formic acid ; a natural pro- 

 duct which the chemist now-a-days knows how to make artificially, 



