842 INSECTA—ANT. 
case, nowever, is not smilar with respect to the gall-nut that grows m 
autumn. The cold weather frequently comes on before the worm is trans- 
formed into a fly, or before the fly can pierce through its enclosure. The 
nut falls with the leaves, and although you may imagine that the fly which 
lies within is lost, yet in reality it is not so; on the contrary, its being coy- 
- ered up so close is the means of its preservation. Thus it spends the winter 
in a warm house, where every crack and cranny of the nut is well stopped 
up; and lies buried, as it were, under a heap of leaves, which preserve if 
from the injuries of the weather. This apartment, however, though so com- 
modious a retreat in the winter, is a perfect prison in the spring. The fly, 
roused out of its lethargy by the first heats, breaks its way through, and 
ranges where it pleases. A very small aperture is sufficient, since at this 
time the fly is but a diminutive creature. Besides, the ringlets whereof its 
bedy is composed, dilate, and become pliant in the passage. 
VEE SSACIN Vive 
THE common ants of Europe! are of two or three different kinds; some 
red, some black, some with stings, and others without. Such as have stings 
inflict their wounds in that manner; such as are unprovided with these 
weapons of defence have a power of spurting, from their hinder parts, an 
acid, pungent liquor, which, if it lights upon the skin, inflames and burns it 
like nettles. 
The body of an ant is divided into the head, breast, and belly. In the 
head the eyes are placed, which are entirely black, and under the eyes there 
are two small horns, or feelers, composed of twelve joints, all covered with 
2 fine silky hair. The mouth is furnished with two crooked jaws, which 
project outwards, in each of which are seen incisors, that look like teeth. 
The breast is covered with a fine silky hair, from which project six legs, that 
are pretty strong and hairy; the extremities of each armed with two small 
claws, which the animal uses in climbing. The belly is more reddish than 
the rest of the body, which is of a brown chesnut color, shining as a glass, 
and covered with extremely fine hair. 
As soon as the winter is past, on the first fine day in April, the ant-hill, 
that before seemed a desert, now swarms with new life, and myriads of these 
sects are seen just awaked from their annual lethargy, and preparing for 
the pleasures and fatigues of the season. For the first day they never offer 
to leave the hill, which may be considered as their citadel, but run over everv 
part of it, as if to examine its present situation, to cbserve what injuries it 
has sustained during the rigors of winter, while they slept, and to meditate 
and settle the labors of the day ensuing. 

1 Formicarie. 
