THE ANTS. 



499 



The fine insect called Chlorion lobatum, which is shown in the centre of the illustration 

 on page 501, is a formidable but useful creature, waging fierce war against cockroaches, 

 those pests of Oriental houses. Its services are fully appreciated by the natives, none of 

 whom would kill one of these insects on any account, or permit any one to injure it. 

 With tHe slaughtered cockroaches it stocks its nest as a provision for the young when 

 they escape from the egg. These insects are tolerably numerous, and are all remarkable 

 for the bright and yet deep purple and green of their bodies, and sometimes of their wings. 



AT the right-hand of the accompanying illustration may be seen a curious windless 

 insect, with head disproportionately large, when the size of its body is taken into 

 consideration. This is an example of a family where the females, although armed with a 

 powerful sting, are quite destitute of wings. % Most of the MutillidEe are exotic, requiring 

 a large amount of heat to preserve them in health, only a very few being natives of our 

 own country. In some of the larger species the sting is fearfully poisonous, a single 

 insect having been known to make a man so seriously ill that he lost his senses a few 

 minutes after being stung, and his life was despaired of for some time. A child has been 

 known to die from the effects of the sting inflicted by the Scarlet Mutilla of North 

 America, an insect whose weapon is as long as the abdomen. All these insects appear to 

 be sand-borers. 





\mV \*Jrv\ fr^*- ^^ 7/vf - *^-' ^ 



GIAXT ANT. Pdnera grandis. Sl^rmicia forficdta. LARGE-HEADED MUTILLA.- -MutiHa 



RED ANT. Formica sanguined. 



THE last-mentioned insect evidently affords a transitional link between the previous 

 families of Hymenoptera and the true Ants, or Formicidae. These insects, as is well 

 known, associate in great numbers, and as is peculiarly the case with the bees, the great 

 bulk of their numbers is composed of workers, or neuters, which are destined to perform 

 the constant labours needful to regulate so large a community. The perfect insects of 

 either sex take no part in the daily tasks, their sole object being to keep up the numbers 

 of the establishment. In the Ants, moreover, the neuters are without wings, and even the 

 perfect insects only retain these organs for a brief period of their existence. 



Every one has heard of the objects called ants' eggs, which are so strongly recom- 

 mended as food for the nightingale and other birds, and many persons though they have 

 seen them, have believed them really to be the objects which their popular name would 

 infer. In truth, however, they are the cocoons of the stingless ants, in which the insects 

 are passing their pupal state before emerging in their winged condition. It has been 

 already mentioned, that only the perfect males and females possess wings. 



KK 2 



