INSECTS. 
107 
extracted from leaves or young shoots, and which, if not immediately 
devoured hy the ants, is ejected by the plant-louse, and falls in drops 
upon the upper portions of the leaves that are beneath, making them 
appear as if varnished, or, if old, causing the places thus defiled to 
he black and rusty, as if affected with a black mildew, or rust. 
The ants feed voraciously upon this honey-dew, when fresh, and 
cause the aphides to eject the substance at will, hy merely tapping 
their abdomens with their antennae; the drop ejected is immediately 
devoured by the ants, and other aphides are visited and subjected to 
the same treatment, until the appetites of the ants are satisfied, when 
they either loiter about the leaves or descend to their nests in the 
ground. Ants are of utility in devouring any weak or disabled 
insects they may encounter in their path, or in consuming any animal 
substances which might otherwise contaminate the air. 
Ants are generally divided into “males,” “females,” and “neuters.” 
The males and females, at one stage of their growth, are furnished 
with wings, which the female gnaws or casts off when about to form a 
colony. The neuters afterwards form the general mass. There are 
several varieties of the ant found in the cotton-fields, of very different 
habits and appearance. The most numerous make a hole in the 
earth, and form a sort of hillock around it, ot the grains of earth or 
sand brought up from below the surface of the ground, and from this 
nest they make excursions in every direction in search of food. 
There is also another species: “red ants,” so called, but in reality 
belonging to the family mutillidm. They are found singly upon the 
ground in plantations, and sometimes measure half an inch in length. 
Their color is a vivid, velvety-red and black. They are able to inflict 
painful and severe wohmls with a long sting with which they are 
provided. There are also three or four species of small ants, exceed- 
ingly troublesome in some of the Southern houses, where they find 
their way into pantries, closets, boxes or trunks, however closed, and 
devour any eatable article which may tall in their way. . the ouly 
means of preventing the ravages ot these insects is to isolate the 
article to be preserved in a vessel of water, or to put all four of the 
legs of the table, on which the articles may be placed, into vessels 
filled with water. 
The smaller ants, however, have a formidable enemy, the ant-lion, 
which, in the larva state, forms a funnel-shaped hole in the sand, 
near the ants’ nests, in the bottom of which it lies concealed, all 
except its jaws, and waits with patience in this den for any ant that 
may chance to pass along the treacherous path. The ant, suspecting 
no harm, reaches the edge of the pit-fall, and, the loose sand giving 
way, it is precipitated to the bottom, where the larva of the ant-lion 
immediately seizes it with its jaws, and, after sucking out its juice, 
casts the empty skin away. Should the unfortunate ant, however, 
elude the first assault of the ant-lion, and endeavor to escape by 
climbing up the steep sides of the funnel-shaped hole, the ant-lion 
throws repeated showers of sand with such precision upon the unfor- 
tunate victim that it very seldom fails to overwhelm and bring it 
within reach of its jaws, when it is seized and its juices extracted as 
above described. 
