INSECTS. 131 



soon as there is a sunshiny day they fly out, usually 

 in large numbers. After pairing, the females let 

 themselves fall to the ground ; they then either tear 

 off their own wings or this is done for them by the 

 workers, which search them out and take them to 

 the nest, where the laying of eggs quickly begins. The 

 legless larvEe have feebly developed mouth-parts, and 

 are fed by the workers on food broken down by them. 

 The pupae vary ; in the sting-beariug ants (Myrmica) 

 they are naked, in the stingless ants (Formica), on the 

 other hand, they are invested in a cocoon. The latter 

 kind of pupee, known by the incorrect name of " ants' 

 eggs," are collected and used as food for insect-eating 

 birds. The nests are made either out of pine-needles 

 and small branches heaped together (Red Wood Ant = 

 Formica rufa), or they eat out passages and cell-like 

 spaces in sound tree trunks (the larger Wood Ants, e.g. 

 F. herculeana and F. ligniperda) or in decayed tree 

 trunks (Small Wood Ant = F. fuliginosa) ; others 

 (Yellow Wood Ants = F. flava, etc.) make passages 

 and cavities in the ground, throwing up the earth 

 into ant-hills. Damage: Several species do harm 

 by excavating the soil, either in meadows and corn- 

 fields, by which the plants are killed and harvest- 

 ing rendered diflBcult, or under summer-houses and 

 dwelling-rooms. Others destroy tree stems. They 

 are indirectly harmful on account of the way in 

 which they care for aphides, causing these pests to 

 increase to a greater extent than would otherwise 

 be the case. Bemedies: If ants have got into a 

 room the nest must be found if possible, and the 

 insects there destroyed with parafiin or boiling water. 

 If it proves to be too difficult to find and destroy the 

 nest, all the openings by which the ants can enter 

 must be stopped up with lime to which some extract 

 of colocynth has been added. The nests found in fields 

 and gardens may sometimes be destroyed by quickly 

 digging them up, pouring paraflSn over them, and 



