ANTS 



187 



food consists of sweet vegetable and animal matter, honey, and the honey-like 

 juice which exudes from aphides, or plant-lice. It is for the sake of this secretion 

 that the latter insects are often found in ants' nests, where they are kept by their 

 owners, who use them as milch-cows. Ants also devour cochineal insects, caterpillars, 

 worms, and the flesh of small vertebrates, as well as fruit, although they only 

 attack the latter when the skin is broken. Many ants steal the larvae or pupa? of 

 the workers of other species, in order to procure their so-called slaves. There are 

 certain insects found only occasionally and not exclusively in ant-hills, while others 

 simply inhabit them when fully developed, and a third category are completely 

 dependent on ants, and occur onty in their nests. 



The commonest kind of ant in forests, especially when coniferous, is the 

 wood-ant (Formica rufa), which varies from J, to ^ of an inch in length, and has a 

 blackish spot on the back of the brownish red thorax ; the males, however, being 

 wholly brownish black, with a 

 slight shimmer of ashy grey. In 

 forests and by the wayside, nest- 

 ing mostly under stones and 

 moss, sometimes also in hollow 

 stumps, is not infrequently found 

 the red ant (F. sanguinea), which 

 is from ^ inch to § of an inch in 

 length, with a red head and 

 thorax, and black abdomen, the 

 whole suffused with shimmering 

 grey on account of the coat of 

 hairs, and the head sometimes 

 showing blackish brown spots. 

 In their nests are usually found 

 workers of the dark brown ant, 

 developed from stolen pupae. The 

 aforesaid brown ant (F. fused), 

 which furnishes the slaves, inhabits similar situations, is of the same size as the 

 last, and is everywhere abundant : it has more or less brown legs and antennae, but 

 is otherwise entirely brownish black. 



Old stumps of oaks and willows, as well as beneath stones and moss, are the 

 usual situations for the nests of the wood-ant (Lasiu* fulignw«ii#), a common 

 species, the males, females, and workers of which are almost equal in size and of 

 a uniform glossy black colour, excepting the antenna?, legs, and the pedicle con- 

 necting the abdomen with the thorax, which are more or less reddish brown; 

 the head being broader than the thorax, very stout, and indented at the back. 

 The black ant (L. niger) may be met with everywhere in woods and fields, by 

 the wayside and in the meadows, in the ground among stones, or above it 111 

 stumps. In colour it is dark brown, often quite black, the thorax being reddish 

 and somewhat transparent, the abdomen covered with close and short hairs, and 

 the legs brown like the antenna?, but with more red on them. The males and 

 workers measure rather over one-eighth of an inch long, the fertile females being 



FOREST-ANTS. 



