92 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



of the loose gypsum ; but at last, after many failures, the 

 little creatures managed to make a way right through the 

 thickness of the wall. Forel then blocked the tunnel by 

 slightly shaking the gypsum. But the ants had clearly 

 become perfect at their work, for they quickly remade the 

 tunnel through the mass that had fallen in. Forel then left 

 them at peace, and they escaped with their larvse and pupae. 

 Perhaps yet more interesting than the roads, are the stations 

 which the ants make for the shelter of the provisions, or of 

 the workers when the way is long. They are generally 

 small nests, for the reception of the workers when wearied 

 or overpowered by the sun, or for a warm shelter if they 

 are benighted. If a sudden shower of rain overtakes them, 

 they also resort to them. Sometimes these are mere holes 

 in the earth, but at other times they are thorough little nests. 

 dome-covered, which gradually can be made to serve as real 

 nests. Mention will be made later of the way in which 

 harvesting ants make regular depots for grain on the road. 



In addition to these stations, there are also suburbs and 

 dependencies of the large nests, which receive the surplus 

 population. New nests thus often spring up under such 

 circumstances in the neighborhood of the old one, and this 

 enlargement gradually grows to an enormous circumference 

 round the original spot. Forel saw a colony of F. exsecta, in 

 a wood-clearing on Mont Tendre, which consisted of more 

 than two hundred nests, and covered a space of 150 200 

 square metres. A similar, but somewhat smaller colony, of 

 F. jjressilabris, is found in the Petite Saleve near Geneva. 

 The whole space is covered with stunted shrubs, on which 

 the ants keep their Aphides. All the members of such a 

 colony, even those from the furthermost nests, recognise 

 each other and admit no stranger. This fact, together with 

 the great number of inhabitants, which all hold together, 

 gives such a colony unusual strength ; and one can, with 

 Huber, unhesitatingly 'compare their several nests to the 

 several cities of one and the same country, or still better 

 with those of one and the same Republic. The whole realm 

 rises to repel an attack from without, and the subterranean 

 as well as surface means of communication between the 

 different nests make possible a rapid concentration of the 

 marshalled war-forces on a single point, just as is the case in a 

 human kingdom by means of many and well-arranged railways. 



