Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/573

 ANT 541 it was discovered by the younger Huber that in the males and females they are gradually developed from the first day of their existence, until, when their purpose has been fulfilled, they are dislocated and cast aside like worn- out clothes. Besides the labors of the work- ing ants, or neuters, already described, they have the task of forming the streets, chambers, and habitations of the colony, repairing them, thatching them, fortifying them against the weather by various operations of mining, masonry, or carpentry, performed with won- derful skill, and under circumstances which prove the possession of some powers or senses beyond our comprehension. It is, however, noticeable that the possession of elbowed or flail-shaped antennao is almost in- variably associated with a high degree of in- telligence, evidenced by constructive ability, command of language, &c., as in the bees, wasps, and ants. The most remarkable of the mining ants are the formica sanguinaria of Germany and the F. ccespitum or tuft ant of England, which perforate long galleries in the clay, removing all the rubbish, and building buttresses to support their work, by aid of their mandibles only, and then overcasting the whole with a thatch of grass stems and heather against wet or cold. The most common of the mason ants are the red and yellow field ants, which erect superficial habitations ; first raising pillars, then springing arches from pillar to pillar, and lastly erecting above them the loose piles of soil which we know as ant hills. Their materials for these edifices are the soil, sand, and clay, kneaded with rain water into a tenacious mortar, which is be- smeared over wheat stalks, blades of grass, or any casual supports which they can find. The carpentering ants are those which, like the emmet, F, fuliginosa, of Europe, and the F. caryoB or walnut ant of the United States, per- forate their cells in the solid timber of growing trees, boring or chiselling them out, side by side, at all sorts of divergent curves, and some- times at right angles one to the other, appar- ently in conformity with no plan, and carried on in accordance with the will of the excava- tor only, until they come so closely into rela- tion with another series of workings that the divisions between them are not thicker than ordinary letter paper, when they instantly terminate, or turn aside, without in any known instance perforating the partition between the several galleries. There is a considerable va- riety in the food of ants. A favorite article of diet is honey in some of its modifications, but more especially the secretions of the various species of aphides, known as honey dew, which is found besmearing the leaves of plants, and which is so injurious to the vege- tables when it becomes thick enough to ob- struct the pores ; and it is on this account that wherever aphides abound, ants will ever be found attending on their motions. Some vari- eties of ants are in the habit of capturing root- sucking aphides and imprisoning them in their cells, with a view to feeding on their honey dew. In this case the ants take the same care of the "root lice" as they do of their own young. Many ants subsist largely on decay- ing animal and vegetable matter, rendering themselves very serviceable as scavengers, and as assistants to the naturalists in the prepara- tion and cleaning of the skeletons of small animals for museums. The allusion in Prov. vi. 6-8 to the habits of an Asiatic species, is also applicable to a Texan ant, myrmica, mole- faciens, which is reported by" observers to not only feed upon a certain grain, the seed of aristida stricta, but also to plant, cultivate, and harvest it, laying it up in dry cells " against the rainy day." This species, some- times called the "agricultural ant," builds " paved cities, constructs roads, and sustains a large military force." Myrmica molesta, the "troublesome" or the "little red ant," is of a reddish yellow, the worker measuring only T $-3- of an inch in length, and is the great pest of houses in many parts of the United States. In other places a large black ant (F. Pennsyl- vania) takes its place, destroying decaying timbers, books, provisions, specimens of natu- ral history, furs, and other property. Very small ants abound in South America, whose bite is so sharp that they are called fire ants ; they are very annoying and destructive, mak- ing up in numbers what they lack in size. Some species, especially the wood ant, F. rufa, and the Amazon or warrior ant, F. rufescem, as well as the sanguinary ant, F. sanguinaria, are literally slave-holders. They sally out in great swarms on belligerent and predatory ex- cursions, for the purpose of capturing and bringing home to their own colonies the eggs and cocoons of other tribes, generally of the dusky ant, F. fusca, which, when hatched in the fortresses of the victors, are compelled to life- long labor. Independent of the annual migra- tory disposition of all the species, for the pur- pose of forming new colonies, sudden impulses, probably connected with facility of obtaining food, at times appear to seize on certain vari- eties of ants, leading them all to take wing simultaneously. Strange relations may be found in the " History of the Berlin Academy " for 1749, in the German "Ephemerides," and in the Journal de physique for 1790, of vast clouds of ants, darkening the air, and having a curious intestine motion, like that of the aurora borealis, unconnected with their line of flight, being seen at divers places, and, when they fell, literally covering the earth, so that one could not tread without crushing them at every footfall. For particulars con- cerning the habits and ravages of the great white ant of the tropics, see TEEMITES, for that insect is not properly an ant. Du Chaillu has graphically described the formidable le- gions of the Cashikonay ant of Africa, before which all animals flee. See the works of Baron de Geer and the younger Huber, Pack-