ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 93 



But all this falls far short of the description given by the 

 Rev. Mr. McCook, in the Trans, of the Amer. Entomol. Soc.,. 

 Nov., 1877, of the " Ant Town " he discovered in the Alleg- 

 hany mountains, North America. This town, built and in- 

 habited by the F. exsecto'ides (Forel), or mound-making ant 

 of America, lies on the eastern side of the Brush mountain^ 

 Pennsylvania, not far from Hollidaysburg, and consists of 

 no less than 1600 1700 single colonies or nests, which rise 

 in cones to a height of from two to five feet and have a 

 circumference of from ten to fifty-eight, covering a plain of 

 about fifty acres in extent. Beneath each nest is an extensive 

 system of subterranean galleries and roads, which often 

 stretch to a length of sixty feet to the neighboring trees and 

 food resorts. McCook reckoned that these remarkable 

 buildings, compared with the size of their architects, are a 

 thousand times as large as the buildings of men. The in- 

 habitants of all these nests are bound together in strict 

 alliance and never carry on war against each other, and may 

 therefore be rightly regarded as a large republican common- 

 wealth, or a kind of Federative Republic. Injuries suffered 

 by these nests or hill-dwellings, are very rapidly repaired by 

 their united forces. Small animals, thrown on the surface 

 of the nests, as large spiders, snakes, etc., are torn to pieces 

 with equal rapidity, and gnawed down to the chitin, or 

 skeleton. 



To return once more to the covered ways, or tunnels ; 

 these are built for another reason than that named above 

 viz., for protection against the sun. As much as ants love 

 the mild spring or autumn, and know how to utilise it for the 

 benefit of their young, so much do they avoid the hot mid- 

 day sun of summer, which quickly shrivels up their little 

 bodies. On very hot days they therefore work in the 

 mornings and evenings, and take a siesta in the middle 

 of the day. They thus behave exactly as men do in hot 

 countries and on hot days. Lespes noticed this with Atta 

 barbara, one of the species of harvesting ants of the Medi- 

 terranean shores, and Moggridge remarked the same, 

 Lespes also saw this species working by moonlight at night, 

 while Moggridge saw them working " when there was 

 neither moon nor stars to be seen." This, as well as the 

 observations of Gould, Huber, Kirby, Ratzeburg, Forel, 

 and others, resolves the question so much ventilated since. 



