ANSWER, in law, a defense in writing, made by a defendant to charges contained in a complaint filed by the plaintiff against him in a court of law. In all the code States a statute similar in its provisions to § 500 of the New York Code of Civil Procedure has been adopted. This section provides that the an swer of the defendant must contain: (1) A general or specific denial of each material al legation of the complaint controverted by the defendant, or of any knowledge or information thereof sufficient to form a belief ; (2) a state ment of any new matter constituting a defense or counterclaim, in ordinary and concise lan guage, without repetition.
ANT, a small social insect of the family of Hymenoptera, characterized by unusual dis tinctness of the three regions of the body, head, thorax and abdomen and by the stack or petiole of the abdomen having either one or (rarely) two ascalee or `nodes,)) so that the abdomen moves very freely on the trunk or thorax. The antenna are elbowed as in wasps and bees. Ants live in societies, consisting, besides the males and females, of smaller wingless work ers. In all ants, except the Odontamachirle and Dorylider, the mandibles are wide apart at the base or insertion, so that they can be used without the other appendages of the mouth being opened or even moved. Both males and females are winged, but the males are much smaller than the females, while the wingless workers are smaller than the males. In these wingless forms the segments of the thorax become more or less separated, making the body much longer and slenderer and less com pact than in the winged normal sexual forms, the prothorax being more developed than in' the males and females. The workers often consist of two forms: one with a large cubical head, or worker major, sometimes called a soldier, and the usual small-headed form, or worker minor. In certain genera this poly morphism (q.v.) is still more marked. The legs are usually long and slender, the tarsi are five-jointed as usual in Hymenoptera, but the front or basal joint is disproportionately long, so that it functions as if part of the tibia; the tibias of the fore pair of legs are furnished with comb for cleaning the antennae and mouth appendages. A sting is sometimes present, as in which sting like wasps and bees and in the Myrmiciner, while in the workers of ordinary ants it is either vestigial or en tirely wanting. Some ants secrete an active i poison (formic acid), which they inject into the wound made by their jaws in biting. In
the Formicinoz, whose sting is atrophied, the amount of poison secreted is "relatively enor mous" (Janet). Our Formica obscuripes is a very ferocious species and, like the European F. pratensis, rises upon its hind legs, curves the abdomen and ejects its venom, while Muck ermann adds that the ejection of formic acid is so copious as to enforce the observer to momentarily retire.
The larva of ants are uniformly maggot like, being legless, soft-bodied, cylindrical and with a small head bent on the breast. They are helpless and are fed by the workers.
Wheeler has shown that different species of ants employ very different methods of feeding their larva. Some (those of Camponotus, For mica, Lasius and Myrmica) feed their young with liquid food regurgitated from their crops and possibly also with the secretion of the sali vary glands. Other species, however, Ponerince and some lifvrmicince, feed their larva with comminuted insects. Wheeler states that the larva of certain ants "are not only able to subsist on solid food, but even on food of a vegetable nature." The larva of the stingless genera usually spin a delicate silken cocoon, while those of the aculeate genera do not. Within the cocoon the larva transforms into the pupa.
Nesting The history of a for micarium, or ants' nest, is as follows: The workers only (but in some species the winged ants) hibernate and are found early in the spring taking care of the eggs and larva pro duced by the autumnal brood of females. Every ant colony is founded by a single fer tilized female. In the course of the summer the adult forms are developed, swarming on a hot, sultry day. The small yellow ants, abun dant in paths and about houses in New Eng land, generally swarm on the afternoon of some hot day in the first week of September, when the air is filled toward sunset with myriads of them. The females, after their marriage flight in the air, may then be seen entering the ground to tay their eggs for new colonies, or they are often seized by the work ers and retained in the old colonies. Having no more use for their wings, they pluck them off and may be seen running about wingless. The female, after laying her eggs, does not go abroad in search of food, but feeds the young larva with food regurgitated from her stom ach and derived from her fat-bodies; thus the larva are poorly fed and become workers.