1925 ] 
Growth of Ant Mounds 
77 
made of a certain new mound and incipient community which 
has grown to maturity along with many others established 
during this period in the same area, which was a very sterile 
flat of several acres covered with reddish-iron-ore earth: refuse 
removed formerly from large adjacent bog-iron-ore pits. 
When first seen July 7, 1906, this new nest was conspicuous 
amidst the sparse grass as being a few handfuls of light yellow 
and white pellets of irregular size brought up from the subsoil 
and piled up amidst the grass in an irregular mass three inches 
high and nine inches wide. There were no holes into the middle 
of the nest, but large irregular entrances about the base on the 
N. W. S. and E. sides. It was about 150 feet from an old nest, 
No. 59 of a survey in 1905, that has remained there since despite 
the encroaching Japanese honeysuckle and has grown from five, 
to six by eight feet in diameter, and from 2 to nearly three feet 
in height, with a circumference of 22 feet. Possibly from this 
large nest came the female that started the incipient nest. 
When disturbed the ants in this incipient nest swarmed out and 
made a rustling sound running over the dead leaves near the 
nest, but they were but few in number though so rapidly covering 
all the surroundings. 
When next measured, November 13, 1906, this incipient 
nest had grown to be a considerable mass fifteen inches across 
and four to five in height. This, then, was the maximum of 
the first year’s building. 
After another year, October 24, 1907, this incipient nest 
measured 6 by 18 inches. The ground on which it was placed 
was an artificial ridge falling off to the East as a shallow de- 
pression and from now on it became evident that the earth placed 
by the ants tended to spread unequally and the measurements 
from the ground level were greater on the east and less on the 
west. Thus June 12, 1908, the mass of earth was 21 inches from 
NW-SE, 18 inches wide from NE-SW, while the height was 8 
inches from the ground on the west and 12 from the level on the 
east. More ants were now busy over the mound, but grass 
blades and small shoots of honeysuckle were growing up in the 
midst of the nest. In the fall of that year, October 18, the 
mound measured 9 by 26 inches and was quite conspicuous an 1 
