386 THE INSECT WOELD. 



tool than their mandibles, the excavators work their way through 

 the hardest wood. They bore holes right through it, riddling 

 it completely with numerous stories of horizontal galleries. The 

 Yellow ant has two sorts of habitations : it passes the summer 

 in a tree, and the winter in a burrow or underground dwelling- 

 place. 



Independent of the principal entrances, there exist, in some 

 nests, masked doors, guarded by sentinels. Many species also 

 hollow out covered galleries, which they only unmask in ex- 

 treme danger, either to open an outlet for the besieged, or to 

 turn the enemy who has already invaded the place. Ant-hills are, 

 in fact, perfect fortresses, defended by a thousand ingenious con- 

 trivances, and guarded by sentinels always on the qui vive. 



The domestic life of the different species is nearly the same. 

 The birth and rearing of the little ones, and the duties of the 

 adults, do not differ perceptibly from each other 

 in the various species of ants. The females live 

 together in harmony. They lay, without ceasing 

 to walk about/white eggs, of cylindrical form, and 

 microscopic dimensions. The workers pick them 

 up, and carry them to special chambers. In a 

 fortnight after the laying, the larva (Fig. 365) 

 appears. Its body is transparent. A head and 

 wings can be made out, but no legs ; the mouth 

 is a retractile nipple, bordered by rudimentary 

 mandibles, into which the workers disgorge the 

 juices they have elaborated in their stomachs; and 

 as they lay by no provisions, they are obliged to gather each day 

 the sugary liquids destined for the food of the larvae. 



From their birth, a troop of nurses is charged with the care of 

 them. They put them out in the open air during the day. 

 Hardly has the sun risen, when the ants placed just under the 

 roof, go to tell those which are beneath, by touching them with 

 their antennae, or shaking them with their mandibles. In a few 

 seconds, all the outlets are crowded with workers carrying out the 

 larvae in order to place them on the top of the ant-hill, that they 

 may be exposed to the beneficent heat of the sun. When the 

 larvae have remained some time in the same place, their guardians 



