HABITATIONS OF ANTS. 91 



The habitations of Ants are of different construction ac- 

 cording to the species of their builders, some being raised like 

 that above described, and formed mason-like of earth, while 

 others are mined beneath its surface or excavated in wood. 

 All are difficult to follow in their progress towards completion ; 

 Huber found it so, even with the assistance of artificial Formi- 

 caries ; but the labours of our Wood-ants are more open to 

 observation, as they work less under cover than the more 

 regular " Masons," " Miners," and " Carpenters," of their in- 

 defatigable race. 



Our villager's " many friends " of the old pollard, are in- 

 tended expressly, though not with reference to character, for 

 a family of the large brown Oak- Aphis, greatest of its tribe, 

 with a pipe or sucker of prodigious length, which, when not 

 employed in extraction of sweet juices from leaf and branch, 

 is carried under the body, passing upwards like' a tail. 



