76 
STRANGE DWELLINGS . 
Homeric fable. They were not very pugnacious, as I feared 
they would be, and I had no difficulty in securing a few with 
my fingers. I never saw them under any other circumstances 
than those here related, and what their special functions may 
be I cannot divined 
The subterranean galleries which these creatures form are of 
almost incredible extent — so vast, indeed, and so complicated, 
that they have never been fully investigated. A conjecture as 
to their size may be formed from the fact, that when sulphur 
smoke was blown into a nest, one of the outlets was detected at 
a distance of seventy yards. The Saiiba has often done con- 
siderable damage to property, having pierced the embankment 
of a large reservoir, and let out all the water before the damage jj 
could be detected. 
The winged class is composed of the perfect male and female, 1 
which take their departure from the nest in January and 
February. They are quite unlike the other workers and soldiers, j 
being larger and darker, with rounder bodies and a more bee- 
like aspect. The female is a really large insect, measuring more 
than two inches in expanse of wing, and the body being equal in 
size to a hornet ; but the male is much smaller, as is generally 
the custom with the insect race. Of the hosts which pour out 
of the nests, only a few individuals remain after a space of 
twelve hours, the nest having been devoured by birds and other 
insect-eating creatures. Those which survive address themselves 
to the founding of new colonies ; and so prolific are these insects, 
that, in spite of the vast destruction wrought among the winged 
individuals, to whom alone the task of reproduction belongs, 
man often has to retire before them, and even his art cannot 
conquer them. 
The Saiiba is one of the very few ants that does not attack 
other creatures. The real Driver, or Visiting, or Foraging 
Ant, of which there are several species, belongs to another genus, 
Eciton, which will be described among the building-insects. 
Most of the British ants are among the burrowers, hollowing 
out subterranean abodes of great extent, and constructing them 
