HYMENOPTERA. 381 
of dilute sulphuric acid on maize and other vegetable matters. 
Their whole body is impregnated with this acid, and has a strong 
sour smell. Some people like to chew ants, on account of their 
sourish taste. ‘They also make,” says Charles de Geer, “creams 
for side-dishes, to which these ants give, they say, the taste of 
lemon-juice.”” We know, in the south of France, people who have 
eaten these crémes aux fourmis! Polyergus forms a sub-genus of 
Formica. 
In all these species, the workers, or neuters, have the charge 

| Fig. 361.—Sections of an Ants’ Nest. 
of the building, provisioning, and rearing of the larvae—in fact, 
all the care of the household, and the defence of the nest. 
Deprived of wings, they are bound to the soil, and condemned to 
work. As compensation, to them belong strength, authority, 
power: nothing is done but through them. “ Born protectors of 
an immense family still in the cradle,” says M. Victor Rendu, 
“by their vigilance, their tenderness, and their solicitude, without 
