174 ZOOLOGY. 
Fam 14. Mutillide. This family approaches the Yormicide (ants) in. 
general appearance, but the species are solitary, and provided with a long 
curved sting which can be used very effectually, on account of the flexi- 
bility of the abdomen. There are but two kinds of individuals, male and 
female, the latter being apterous. The species inhabit hot and sandy 
localities, and they are often covered with short hair, sometimes vividly 
colored with red, yellow, and black. utilla (pl. 79, jig. 1), Apterogyna 
Jig. 2). . 
fam. 15. Hormicide (pl. 79, figs. 8-9). This is the family of the 
ants, in which the head is triangular, the antenne filiform, and elbowed at 
the end of the basal articulation, the mandibles robust, the abdomen oval 
and attached by a narrow pedicle, and the feet slender and cursorial. 
These insects live in society in burrows of their own construction, which 
are found in the earth, or in dead trunks of trees. Some form a rough hill 
out of clay mixed with bits of vegetable material. Hormica merdicola, of 
Brazil, builds a nest of dry horse excrement, upon the stems of reeds and 
trunks of trees. A somewhat similar nest (figured in Kirby’s Bridgewater 
Treatise) is constructed upon the branches of trees by Myrmica kirbii. 
The Brazilian Formica elata of Dr. Lund makes a nest upon the trunks 
of trees out of clay and leaves. A minute species of the United States, 
which seems to be Alyrmica domestica, is found in small colonies under 
stones, but it occasionally takes up its residence in old galls upon oak shrubs, — 
entering by the aperture made by the retiring Cynips, and adapting the 
interior to its purpose. The same species swarms in some houses, both in 
America and England. 
A few individuals like workers, but with a very large head, are sometimes 
found. Among the driver ants of Western Africa, according to the obser- 
vation of Dr. T. 8. Savage, there are three or four kinds: neuters, soldiers, 
workers, and carriers. 
Besides the ordinary males and females, which are not numerous, the 
societies of ants are made up chiefly of workers, sometimes named neuters, 
which are abortive females without wings, of a smaller size and more indus- 
trious habits than the others. These have all the work of the establishment 
to perform, whether in building, collecting food, or taking care of the eggs 
-and young. The difference between a worker and a female is probably due 
to a peculiar mode of feeding, as with the bees, where the larva, if a worker, 
is transformed into a queen when accident deprives the hive of the latter. 
The male and female are winged, but the wings are dropped after a certain 
time, and the latter is larger than the former. 
Tn cold climates the male and female ants die in winter, and the neuters 
remain torpid, so that they do not require a stock of food. But under other 
circumstances a store of food is collected. Thus an East Indian species 
collects a great quantity of grass-seed, which is brought to the surface to 
dry after the heavy rains of that country. Ants are fond of the liquid 
matter exuded by the Ap/zdes, and they frequent the trees where they are 
found, for the purpose of getting it; and by annoying the Apfzs they can 
cause it to furnish a globule. Certain species of Membracis are treated 
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