THE LIVING WORLD. 
269 
1 .ARV/E OF THE ANT- 
Selecting by preference a stone or a tuft of grass, these ants hollow out a 
series of rooms with connecting galleries. They pile up earth, using the stems 
of the plant for supports, and being dependent upon water as a cement; in the 
absence of this they construct their buildings upon the principle of the arch. 
Preferring a circular form, these ants yield to necessity and use other shapes. 
The main rooms are given up to the 
pupae; others, dug below, are devoted to _«v ,j. 
the service of eggs and cocoons. The 
yellow ants occupy numberless cells com¬ 
municating with each other, and seem 
to pass much of their time in attend¬ 
ing to their larvae ; they do not at all object to the presence of the wood-louse, 
which seems to be a welcome guest. The brown ant (formica brunnea) is the 
most fastidious of builders, executing its work with the minute attention of 
the maker of mosaics, rather than with the larger care of the worker in brick 
and stone. They adapt their buildings to surrounding conditions, and thus teach 
man the folly of erecting pagodas 
under a winter sky. They support 
their roofs by columns which in per¬ 
fect mechanism and mechanical beauty 
rival the Ionic, Doric and Corinthian 
columns of human art. Our modern 
thirteen-storied buildings are outdone 
by theirs of forty stories. They 
build in equal proportions toward the 
sk}^ above and the water under the 
earth, for their object seems to be to 
secure the nicest gradations of tem¬ 
perature, so that their young shall 
lack nothing for their most perfect 
development. Not secreting wax, as 
does the bee or the wasp, the ant builds 
during rainy or humid seasons, so that 
the earth is thus united in the crevices 
and subsequently dried by the sun. 
Furthermore, the ant seemingly never begins its work without reflection, for it 
always avails itself of accidental aids, such as frag¬ 
ments of plants placed so as to assist in forming a 
roof, or materials making a good beginning for ver¬ 
tical walls. The common ant, or pismire (formica 
rufa ), is generally of a rusty brown, relieved on the 
head by black. The building materials it uses is infi¬ 
nitely varied. Beginning with a cavity in the earth, 
they first cover the entrance ; they next mine out police ant making an arrfst. 
halls and galleries which inter-communicate, and on 
ceasing the work of each day close the passages, so that love’s labor shall not 
be lost. 
The termite ant is not a true ant, but has derived its name from its appa¬ 
rent resemblance to the ant family, and from their living in mounds or hills. 
