CLASS iksecta: order htmenoptera, 209 



a. Egg ; b. Larva ; c Pupa of Ants ; d. Pon^a grandis, Giant Ant ; 

 P. Forrmca sanguinia. Red Ant ; G. Myrmecia forficdta ; H. MutiUa cephcUdtos. 



looking grains about, an erroneous idea has aripen that the ants lay up food for 

 winter. The habits of the various species are well worth study. The Agricultural 

 Ants of Texas have a tiny farm, where they cultivate a plant {Aristida stricta) whose 

 seed they harvest. The Sanguinary Ants are warriors. They rob their neighbors 

 and reduce their captives to abject slavery, compelling them to do all their work for 

 them^ " to lick them, brush thena, carry them on their back, and feed them." The 

 Foraging Ants hunt in vast armies, clearing the region they traverse of every wing- 

 less insect. They build covered ways for the advance of their columns, and in one 

 case constructed across a chasm a tubular bridge one-half an inch in diameter and 

 twelve Inches long. The Leaf-cutting Ants dig wells in search of water, sometimes 

 thirty feet deep. In one place they dug a tunnel under the river Parahyba. In some 

 parts of Brazil they render agriculture almost impossible ; they undermine buildings, 

 carry off provisions by night, and strip a tree of all its leaves in a day. The White 

 Ants (a NeuropterouB insect, Termes beUicoms) of the tropics, erect conical hills 

 twelve feet high, and so strong that the buffaloes use them for watch-towers. They 

 destroy furniture and even houses. They have been known in a single night to 

 ascend a tabje-leg, eat the contents of a trunk on top, and descend through another 

 leg. The female lays 80,000 eggs in a day, yet in spite of this fecurdity their number 

 is kept down, because man and beast alike feed upon them as a dainty. Read Bell's 

 " Naturalist in Nicaragua," Popular Science Monthly, July, 1875, Bates's " Natural- 

 ist on the Amazon," Figiiier's " Insect World," etc. 



