



386 THE INSECT WORLD. 
tool than their mandibles, the excavators work their way through 
the hardest wood. They bore holes right through it, riddling 
it completely with numerous stories of horizontal galleries. The 
Yellow ant has two sorts of habitations: it passes the summer 
in a tree, and the winter in a burrow or underground dwelling- 
place. 
Independent of the principal entrances, there exist, in some 
nests, masked doors, guarded by sentinels. Many species also 
hollow out covered galleries, which they only unmask in ex- 
treme danger, either to open an outlet for the besieged, or to 
turn the enemy who has already invaded the place. Ant-hills are, 
in fact, perfect fortresses, defended by a thousand ingenious con- 
trivances, and guarded by sentinels always on the gui vive. 
The domestic life of the different species is nearly the same. 
The birth and rearing of the little ones, and the duties of the 
adults, do not differ perceptibly from each other 
in the various species of ants. The females live 
together in harmony. They lay, without ceasing 
to walk about, white eggs, of cylindrical form, and 
microscopic dimensions. The workers pick them 
up, and carry them to special chambers. In a 
fortnight after the laying, the larva (Fig. 365) 
appears. Its body is transparent. A head and 
wings can be made out, but no legs; the mouth 
is a retractile nipple, bordered by rudimentary 
eri HEC aA onan mandibles, into which the workers disgorge the 
ee juices they have elaborated in their stomachs; and — 
as they lay by no provisions, they are obliged to gather each day | 
the sugary liquids destined for the food of the larve. | 
From their birth, ‘a troop of nurses is charged with the care of. 
them. They put them out in the open air during the day. : 
Hardly has the sun risen, when the ahts placed just under the, 
roof, go to tell those which are beneath, by touching them with 
their antenne, or shaking them with their mandibles. In a few 
seconds, all the outlets are crowded with workers carrying out the 
larvee in order to place them on the top of the ant-hill, that they 
may. be exposed to the beneficent heat of the sun. When the 
larvee have remained some time in the same place, their guardians 




