Mining.—There is an interesting species called the Sanguinary Ant (F. sanguinaria, Latreille), reported to have been seen near London, but which is certainly very rare, if it is found in England. In the summer of 1832 we discovered several colonies of this ant on the brow of the heath above Godesberg, on the Rhine ; and being desirous of taking a number of them alive to England for the purpose of observing their singular manners, we waited till the beginning of October, when they had ceased to work, and had retired for the winter to their galleries underground. After uncovering the thick coping of dry heath-twigs and grass-stems which was placed over the subterranean city of the colony so as to defend it from rain and cold, we found several covert-ways dug into the clay, wide enough to allow two or three ants to walk abreast ; but not an individual now made its appearance, though some weeks previously we had observed thousands in all the bustle of industry ; and we began to fear the whole had migrated elsewhere. Being anxious, however, to ace the interior struc ture, we dug in tire direction of the covert-ways to the depth of about six or nine inches, when we acme upon a number of chambers com municating with each other by galleries, and from an inch to two or three inches in extent, in each of which a number of ants were lying along the floor in a half torpid state, being so sluggish that they could not be brought to run with their usual agility even when irritated.
The point which we wish to call attention to here is, that the whole of the apartments which we laid open, amounting to a dozen or more —and there were probably as many more to which we did not pene trate—must have been dug out of the solid clay by the jaws (mandibula) of these little miners. We deemed it singular that we could see none of the rubbish lying about, which must have been cleared away from the interior ; and we can only account for this by supposing the colony long established, and the rubbish battered into the grass by the weather.
In other instances of mining, such as in the case of the Turf-Ant (F. cerspitum), the clay taken from the interior is built up on the outside, using the herbage for buttresses to support the walls thus formed. In the case of the Sanguinary Ants, however, we observed nothing of this kind, and do not think they ever employ any exterior masonry.
Masonry.—The most common of our English ants which employ masonry is the Yellow Ant (F. flare), whose hills are so usually found built up in old pastures, a foot or more in height, and from 6 inches to 2 feet in-diameter. For the materials of their building they are wholly indebted to the soil below, which they quarry out with great assiduity ; but as they have no means of tempering the clay when it is dry, they are always forced to execute their principal works in rainy weather. " I was," says Dr. J. R. Johnson, " in the habit of
visiting, almost daily, for a month, an extensive nest of Red Ants, of which a large flat stone formed the roof. During my visits for the first three weeks, scarcely a drop of rain had fallen, and the nest seemed considerably injured by the continual falling in of loose earth, which these little creatures with amazing industry removed, whenever it happened any of the avenues were blocked up. No attempt was ever made towards reparation ; but what was my surprise, on visiting my little friends after a two days' heavy rain, to find that the repairs were already completed, and that the upper surface of their habitation presented as smooth a surface as if a trowel had been passed over it ; yet all their work they had industriously effected by kneading with the rain-water the loose earth into a sort of paste. From the nest being situated in the midst of an extensive heath, where there could be no supply of water, and from its remaining unrepaired during the dry weather, it amounts to a full conviction that ants employ no other cement than water in the construction of their varied habitations.
" I have often been surprised at the ingenuity of these little creatures, in availing themselves of contiguous blades of grass, stalks of corn, &c., when they wish to enlarge the boundaries of their abode. As these are usually met with in the erect position, they are admirably calculated for pillars ; they therefore coat them over with a fine paste of earth, giving them, by additional layers, the solidity they judge necessary for the work on which they are engaged ; they then leave them to be consolidated by the wind, and afterwards spring a number of arches, from pillar to pillar, and thus form an extensive saloon. Should they be at any time in want of small apartments, they have only to prepare a quantity of moistened earth, and by placing this between the pillars, and carrying it up to the roof, leaving here and there an aperture for entrance, their object is completely attained." It is remarkable that the greater part of these masonic labours are performed during the night, or at least in gloomy weather.
Carpentry.—The coping which we have already described as placed over the subterranean abode of the Sanguinary Ants, and which is still more remarkable in the colonies of the Wood-Ant (F rufa), cannot be referred to any sort of carpentry, for the small sticks and straws of which it is composed are not cut into fitting lengths, but collected in the vicinity of the bill and laid on it after the manner of thatch. The term carpentry, however, will apply most justly to those species which form excavations in the interior of trees, of which the following is an instance observed in 1832.