124 Chapter III. 



where they visit their plantHce and scale-insects to 

 "milk" them by caressing them with their feelers. A 

 few European ants, namely Formica rufa, pratensis 

 and Lasius fuliginosus build regular streets, clearing 

 away from their path all vegetable growth to a dis- 

 tance of sometimes from 20 to 50 m.^ These streets 

 lead from their nests into woods and bushes and thence 

 branch off to the pasture-grounds of their "cattle." 

 Other ants, in particular Lasiiis niger and Cremas- 

 togaster scutellaris build covered roads or tunnels of 

 earth, by which their nests communicate with trees 

 and bushes that are inhabited by aphides or scale- 

 insects. These they occasionally surround with earth- 

 ramparts, in order to keep them together and to pro- 

 tect them from other ants by whom they might be 

 coveted. Such a "plantlice-pavilion," an earth con- 

 struction the size of a hazel-nut, is in my collection ; 

 it was built by Myrmica scabrinodis at the top of an 

 oak-twig in the neighborhood of Exaten. Other ants, 

 e. g., the African Dorylus species, dig subterranean 

 tunnels, where they go for their prey, consisting 

 chiefly of insects and worms. The harvesting ants of 

 Southern Europe, Western Asia, Northern Africa, 

 America and India establish granaries in their nests, 

 where they store up their provisions for winter or sum- 

 mer. The Atta of tropical America, feeding on mush- 

 rooms, use a number of subterranean chambers as vege- 

 table gardens and hot-houses, in which the mushrooms 



^) Among foreign ants there are especially the larger species of 

 the American leaf-cutting ants {Atta) which, according to Belt, Brent 

 and Forel, build similar roads, but frequently of a still more consider- 

 able length and breadth. The same ant-roads we find in North America 

 with ants of the group of F. rufa, especially with Formica exsectoides. 



