H YMENOP TER A . 64 3 
segments (Fig. 768). The queens and workers are armed 
with a sting, and the pupae are 
naked. The following will serve 
to illustrate this family: 
The Red-ant, Monomoriumphar - 
aonis (M o n-o-mo'ri-um phar-a- 
o'nis).—The most troublesome of 
all ants that live in this country 
is a minute yellow species that F dea^V _ a^h/bTs«onhe S 
frequently invades houses. Al- thc front leg ’ enlar ^ ed * 
though this species is light yellow in color, it is commonly 
known as the Red-ant. When these ants build their nests 
within the walls or beneath the foundations of a house it is 
almost impossible to dislodge them. By trapping and de¬ 
stroying the workers their numbers can be lessened some¬ 
what. But so long as the queens are undisturbed in their 
nests the supply of workers will continue. 
The Shed-builder Ant, Cremastogaster lincolata (Cre-mas- 
to-gas'ter lin-e-o-la'ta).—This is a small ant, the workers 
measuring from one eighth to three sixteenths inch in length. 
It is usually yellowish brown, with a black abdomen; but it 
varies greatly in color. Its favorite nesting-place is under 
stones or underneath and within the decayed matter of old 
logs and stumps. Out of this material the ants sometimes 
make a paper-like pulp with which they build a nest attached 
to the side of a log, or even to the branches of a shrub at some 
distance from the ground. Professor Atkinson describes 
such a nest,* which was built several feet from the ground, 
on a bush, and was eighteen inches long and twelve inches 
in circumference; it contained about one fourth pint of 
adults, pupae, and larvae, and was doubtless the home of 
the colony. But these ants often build small sheds, at 
some distance from the nest, over the herds of Aphids or 
scale-insects from which they obtain honey-dew. In these 
^American Naturalist, Aug. 1887. 
