6 BULLETIN 377, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



and started to wash off the ants. It took us nearly an hour and a half to get 

 the last ant off the babj'. I feel sure that if we had not heard the cry, in a few 

 hours the child would have perished. 



With conditions made almost intolerable in badly infested places, 

 it is not uncommon to find empty, unrentable houses. Realty values 

 accordingly drop. 



The nurseryman ana truck grower are greatly molested by this 

 pest, owing to the ant's fondness for the honeydew of aphids and 

 scale insects. The ants take the best possible care of these honey- 

 yielding species, and protect them from their natural enemies, fre- 

 quently building mud shelters over them, and as the host plants 

 grow, carry the young scales and aphids and place them on the 

 young tender growth, where they may more easily sap the juices 

 of the plants. 



Newell and Barber^ give a very graphic account of the manner 

 in which the Argentine ant has invaded the orange orchards of 

 Louisiana. 



In corn, cotton, and sugar-cane fields the Argentine ant when 

 present is constantly attending the aphids and mealy bugs, increasing 

 the numbers of these species to an alarming degree, much to the 

 detriment 6f the plants. The writer has determined that a consider- 

 able loss of sugar results from the attendance of the Argentine ant 

 on the sugar-cane mealy bug. 



HABITS. 



Argentine ants are extremely social among their own kind, the 

 individuals never having been observed to quarrel with one another, 

 nor one colony with another. Workers may be carried for miles and 

 placed with others of their kind and no apparent demonstrations 

 of like or dislike are exhibited. The newcomers appear to enter 

 into the colony spirit and are soon lost to the view of an observer. 

 Any small nest will contain several queens which live together 

 amicably. 



The summer nest may be located anywhere — ^under sidewalks, 

 under the sills of houses, in brick piles, stone piles, under a piece of 

 board or a piece of tin, in an old tin can — ^in fact, in any place con- 

 venient to the food supply. In the winter months there is a tendency 

 to concentrate into larger colonies, and they seek warnt, dry, securp 

 nesting places in which to hibernate. These desirable places are not 

 plentiful, and where one is located the ants from some distance will 

 seek its shelter. The winter is the most hazardous period of the year, 

 for should a nest by any chance be flooded during a cold spell, when 

 the ants are dormant, the chances of survival of the colony would be 

 extremely slight. Usually throughout the latter part of December, 



ii-Op. cit., p. 24. 



