THE ANTS. 



499 



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

 tration on page 501, is a formidable but useful creature, waging fierce war against cock- 

 roaches, those pests of Oriental houses. Its services are fully appreciated by the na- 

 tives, 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 some- 

 times of their wings. 



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

 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 Mutillidae are exotic, 

 requiring a large amount of heat to preserve them in health, only a very few being na- 

 tives 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. 





GIANT ANT.-Pbnera grandis. Myrmecla forficata. LARGE-HEADED MUTILLA.-yWtf//a cephalotes. 



RED ANT. Formica sanguines. 



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 per- 

 form the constant labors 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 in- 

 sects 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. 



