Ant nest

“ The ant-nest forms a very interesting subject for consideration, and the various groups of ants differ widely in the outward form and internal plan according to which the nests are constructed, as well as in the materials of which the habitations are built. Clay, earth, and vegetable matters form the chief sources of supply, and excavations in the ground, or erections above ground, in trees, walls, and house-roofs, may be mentioned as the most common situations for the nests. ”

“ I was rather fancifully describing her wings, dear, which she takes off herself when she enters the nest, having no further use for them. There are three kinds of ants in every nest: perfect males and females, and the workers. There are many different races of ants, from the great white ant of Africa—a terror to the natives, though in some respects his good friend—down to the little red-and-yellow meadow ants so common among us. ”

“ When a nest is disturbed, and the masses of ant-food spread about, the ants are in great concern to carry every morsel of it under shelter again; and sometimes, when I had dug into a nest, I found the next day all the earth thrown out filled with little pits that the ants had dug into it to get out the covered up food. When they migrate from one part to another, they also carry with them all the ant-food from their old habitations. ”

“ The young ant is conducted by them throughout the whole nest, and shown all the devious passageways and corridors. When it makes its first visit into the outside world, it is always accompanied by several chaperons. This parental love, if I may use the expression, is even extended to the unhatched eggs. If an ants' nest is disturbed by a stroke of a spade or hoe, the little inhabitants will at once begin to remove eggs, pupæ, and young to a place of safety.
This parental love is even evinced by insects who never see their offspring. ”

“ From this, they pass into the mature state as perfect insects, and in process of this transition older ants render assistance by way of aiding the transition, "carefully [Pg 194] unfolding their legs and smoothing out their wings."
In the ant nest there is a singular distinction of orders which prevents us speaking of the parent ants as doing all this work for the young. The great majority in every nest are neuters, not producing young; these are the workers, and they are destitute of wings. The smaller numbers only are the males and females producing the young. ”

“ Two ants belonging to the same nest or to the same confederation of nests will approach each other, exchange a few movements with the antennae, and if one of them is hungry or thirsty—and especially if the other has its crop full—it immediately asks for food. The individual thus requested never refuses. It sets apart its mandibles, takes a proper position, and regurgitates a drop of transparent fluid, which is licked up by the hungry ant. ”

“ Of course in this case the ants in the nest could never have seen those which had been removed, for a larval ant is as unlike the mature insect as a grub is unlike a beetle; neither can it be supposed that a larva, hatched out away from the nest, should retain, when a perfect insect, any smell belonging to its parent nest—more especially as it had been hatched out by ants in another nest ”

“ Any one who wishes to test the truth of his words can easily do so by watching the first Ants' nest which he finds, the species of the Ant not being of much consequence. The nests of the Wood-Ant are perhaps the best suited for investigation, partly because the insect and its habitation are comparatively large, and, secondly, because so much of the work is done above-ground. ”

“ We see in an ant’s nest the same restless activity of the workers, the same earnest attention paid to the young and pupæ, the same instinct in shielding the young from danger, and much the same general routine of development. Certain rather special, and it may be said extraordinary, habits of ants may, however, demand notice before we attempt a brief survey of their instincts at large. Few readers are unacquainted with the Aphides, or plant-lice, those little wingless insects which infest our plants and herbs in myriads in summer. ”

“ When the ants commence any undertaking, one would suppose that they worked after some preconceived idea, which indeed would seem verified by the execution. Thus, should any ant discover upon the nest, two stalks of plants, which lie cross-ways, a disposition favourable to the construction of a lodge ”

“ Among the foreign ants we may mention a small yellow ant of South America, described by Dampier, which seems, from his account, to construct a nest of green leaves. “Their sting,” he says, “is like a spark of fire; and they are so thick among the boughs in some places, that one shall be covered with them before he is aware. These creatures have nests on great trees, placed on the body between the limbs: some of their nests are as big as a hogshead. This is their winter habitation; for in the wet season they all repair to these their cities, where they preserve their eggs. ”

“ The well-fed ants return to the nests and share their food with the workers. One of the ant laws is that each must help others for the good of all.
[Pg 26]
10. Deep down in the bottom of the nest lives the queen ant, the mother of the family, who is very much larger than the others. She does not take care of her little ones. This is done by ant nurses, who pick up the tiny eggs and care for them. In the morning the eggs are carried up to the higher chambers, which are warmed by the sun. In the evening they are taken back to the lower rooms away from the chill air.
An ant's nest ”

“ But there is simply no telling beforehand what remarkable condition of things you may find in an ant's nest. There is an ardent naturalist student of ants in the great museum of natural history in New York, who keeps publishing short accounts of the new things he is all the time discovering about the habits and life of ants. ”

“ I have observed on more than one occasion that when in digging into an ant's nest I have thrown out an elater larva, the ants would cluster round it and direct it towards some small opening in the soil, which it would quickly enlarge and disappear down. ”

“ The Tree Ant of India and New South Wales.—These ants are remarkable from their habit of forming nests only in trees. According to Col. Sykes' account, the shape of the nest is more or less globular, and about ten inches in diameter. It is formed entirely of cow-dung, which the [111] insects collect from the ground beneath, and work into the form of thin scales. These are then built together in an imbricated manner, like tiles or slates upon the roof of a house, the upper or outer scale, however, being one unbroken sheet, which covers the whole nest like a skull-cap. ”

“ On careful investigation these insects will prove to be nearly all ants, and, perhaps, to belong to a single species. Looking about on the ground, an unusual activity will be noticed in the ant-hills. This is the swarming of the ants. The autumnal brood of females has appeared, and this is their marriage day.
The history of a formicarium, or ant's nest, is as follows: The workers, only, hibernate, and are found early in the spring, taking care of the eggs and larvæ produced by the autumnal brood of females. ”

“ There are also yellow ants which construct entire stories of this decayed wood. They mix it with a little earth and spider's web, and thus make it into a sort of papier-maché."
"Don't think that's so awful smart," protested Willie. "Jess don't the wasps an' the hornets make paper nests too?"
"Very true," replied his uncle. "There is another curious ant, though, which makes its nest out of leaves. These are large, strong leaves, but the little creatures somehow draw their edges together, and gum them fast, so that they make themselves a close, roomy shelter inside. ”

“ Several times I took away the piece of leaf and the worker would immediately attack another ant and endeavour to get his leaf, and sometimes a number of ants would become involved in the melee. The ant finally left without a leaf would start back on the trail, for it seemed to be an inviolable rule never to go back to the nest without a section of leaf. These leaves are stored away where they ferment and form one of the foods of these industrious little workers. ”

“ Another nuisance is the nest of the large red ant; these collect and glue the leaves together, forming a cavity for the deposition of their larvæ. The best mode of destroying them is to hang a portion of some animal substance, such as the entrails of a fowl, fish, &c., to the end of a pole, thrust through and protruding from the branches; the ants will run along the pole and collect in immense quantities around the bait, when, by a lighted faggot, they can be burned by thousands. ”

“ Is it dropped as soon as the ant comes out of the hole or is it carried some distance? The small ant found along paths usually makes a small ridge all the way around the entrance. While some of the ants are making the nest, others are collecting food. ”

“ Should a single ant approach them, however, they immediately run away, or, if forced by circumstances to be near one or more—which, in an ants’ nest, must be often difficult to avoid—make a point, apparently, of never keeping still, as though to confuse them, or, perhaps, to be the better able to dash off at any instant. ”

“ Young ants, like young people, wish to set up for themselves in new homes. They spread their fine wings. Off they fly! Since there is not room in the old hill they will build a new one.
They swarm as the bees do. As they rise high from the earth, they drift off on the wind. Very many of them tire out and die, or are blown into the water, and are drowned. A few live and settle on places fit for a new ant-hill.
It is the mother or queen ant who chooses the new home. When she has found the right place, what do you think she does? She takes off her wings, as she does not care to fly any more. ”

“ The creature lives in the tree-tops and is diurnal in habits. It moves along the branches with great rapidity, either in an upright position or inverted like a sloth, the prehensile tail being used constantly. Ants form the food, and as these ascend even the highest trees, the little ant-eater has a never-failing and abundant supply; they are gathered up hurriedly as the little creature moves quickly along.
One day an army of carnivorous ants invaded our quarters while we were busily occupied preparing the specimens collected during the morning. ”

“ When I stop I see the side of the road swarms with insect life, ants of various, kinds, black and red, small and big, pegging along the [Pg 126] level, and up and down trees, as if the world depended on each individual's particular bustling. There are white ant hills like ragged heaps of raw chocolate—very hard and strong. ”

“ These little white things are not ants' eggs, but ants' babies. They are the already hatched and partly grown young ants, the larvæ and pupæ, which are so well looked after by the nurse ants. For these young ants are quite helpless, like young bees in the brood-cells in a honey-bee hive. And they have to be fed chewed food, and as they have no legs and so can't walk, they have to be carried from the cool dark nurseries up into the warmer lighter chambers for air and heat every day almost, and then carried back down again. See how gently the nurse ant holds this baby in its jaws ”

“ No one can pass through the upper or lower forests without noticing the much more prominent nests made in the trees by another insect, a small species of black ant. These nests are often as large as a football, and are apparently made of cow-dung, or earthy and vegetable matter, forming a coarse papery substance; they are peopled by large numbers of ants, and are dark brown in colour. ”

“ So we put as many of them as we could find, foraging workers, honey-holders, and the [Pg 276] queen whom we found in a special queen room, into our glass fruit-jar with some soil, and brought them all home and put them into a formicary. Which is simply an artificial ants' nest, or house already arranged for ants to live in. It has a place to hold food and has dark rooms and sunny rooms, cool rooms and warm ones, all nicely fixed with runways connecting them, and food is put in as often as necessary and always in one place, which the ants learn to know very soon, indeed. ”

“ Species which are treated with indifference by the ants and which feed upon the bodies of dead ants and other animal and vegetable debris to be found in ants' nests. The ants are certainly not hostile to these insects and evidently gain some unknown benefit from their presence. 3. Species which live among the ants for the purpose of killing and feeding upon them. The first true ants' nest insect was only discovered and studied at the beginning of this century, but since that time hundreds of other species have been found, and a mere catalogue of their names fills a book of over 200 pages. ”

“ During summer I have seen him on the edge of snowfields and glaciers consuming thousands of unfortunate grasshoppers, flies, and other insects there accumulated. He is particularly fond of ants—tears ant hills to pieces and licks up the ants as they come storming forth to bite him. He tears hundreds of rotten logs and stumps to pieces for grubs, ants and their eggs. He freely eats honey, the bees and their nests. He often amuses himself and makes a most amusing and man-like spectacle by chasing and catching grasshoppers. ”

“ Stimson Lambert of Owensboro, Kentucky, a careful and accurate observer, informs me that he has frequently observed the large red ants (F. rufa) helping their mutilated or crippled companions.
Ants exhibit another emotion that shows the high development of their psychical or emotional nature. In the tender watchfulness and care of their young they are surpassed by no living creature. As soon as the young ant bursts its pupa case, it is carefully assisted into the world by its foster-mothers. ”