380 THE INSECT WORLD. 
Ants have a slim body on long legs. The workers are stouter 
and smaller than the males; and these last are smaller than the 
females. The males have large and prominent eyes, whilst the 
eyes of the workers and females are small. 
Ants are provided with antennee, bent in the form of an elbow, 
with which they examine everything they meet, and which seem 
to assist them in the communication of their ideas. Two horny, 
very strong mandibles serve them at the same time as pincers, 
tweezers, scissors, pick-axe, fork, and sword. A thin, short neck 
joins the head to the thorax, to which, in the case of the males 
and females, are attached four large veiny wings. ‘The workers 
only have no wings. Of the three pair of legs, the hind ones are 
the longest. Hach pair is armed with a spur, and fringed with 
very short hairs, which serve the purpose of brushes. The 
abdomen, large, short, oval, or square, is always most voluminous 
in the females. 
There are three genera of ants which we shall mention. The 
Myrmice have two knobs te the pedicle, by which the abdomen 
is attached to the thorax; the Ponere only one. In these two 
genera, the females and the neuters have a sting, and the larva 



Fig. 359.—Red Ant. Male, magnified Fig. 360.—Brazilian Umbrélla Ant 
(Myrmica rubra). (Atta cephaiotes). 
do not spin a cocoon in which to change into pupa. Lastly, the 
Formice—ants properly so called—have but one knob on the 
pedicle of the abdomen, as in Ponera; their larve spin a silky 
cocoon. They have no sting, but they pour into the wounds made 
by their mandibles an acid liquor, the pungent smell of which is 
well known. This liquid is formic acid; a natural product which 
the chemist now-a-days knows how to make artificially, by the action 
