ANSER. [GoosE.] ANT. If the ant is not especially useful to us in furnishing food, or materials for manu factures, he is an instructive artisan whose movements we may watch with profit. Let us view him as a miner, a mason, a carpenter. The modes in which ants construct their cities differ considerably. The red ant, for example (Myrmica rubra), which is common in gardens, makes burrows and chambers under stones, or in the ground under roots, and the spade often disturbs a peaceful colony.
The dusky turf ant (Formic° c4spitum) se lects a tuft of long grass, the stems of which serve as supports to a slight tenement con sisting of small grains of earth, clay, and sand, piled up without any other cement than water, or the dew and moisture of the ground, which produces a sufficient degree of adhesion between the particles. The whole forms a little hillock, underneath which are galleries and chambers. The sanguinary ant, common on the continent (F. sanguinea), makes a sub terranean city, composed of galleries and chambers, excavated in the earth or clay to a considerable depth. Over the covert ways into this labyrinth is placed a thick coping of dry heath twigs and grass sterns to defend it from rain and cold.
The yellow ant (F.jlava) builds mounds, a foot or more in height, and generally in old pastures. They are composed of particles of soil quarried from below, bits of decayed weed, &c., and are generallybuilt during rainy or moist weather, as these ants have no other means than what the atmosphere affords of tempering their materials. These mounds are smooth externally, and contain chambers and galleries.
The nest of the fallow ant, or wood ant, a large species not uncommon in woods and pleasure grounds, presents a rude appearance : externally it looks like a hillock of earth, in termixed with bits of dried twigs, straws, par ticles of leaves, and as wo have seen, even grains of corn, all mixed together, and form..
ing a large coping or protection to numerous chambers arranged in separate stories, some deeply excavated in the earth, others near the centre or even the surface of the hillock; all communicating with each other by means of galleries; various passages open externally, the entrances being closed or left free, accord ing to the state of the weather.
The colonies of the fuliginous or jet ant (F. faliginosa), make their habitations in the trunks of old oaks or willows, in which with their strong mandibles they work out hori zontal galleries separated from each other by thin partitions, and all communicating with each other. These excavations often resemble halls supported by multitudes of pillars, rising story above story, and built of ebony, for the wood is invariably stained black, perhaps in consequence of the action of the formic acid, a peculiar secretion found in ants, and which, dissolved in water, serves the ptu-poses of vine gar in Norway, where the ants are collected and steeped in boiling water, and thus is formed diluted formic acid.
With respect to the ants of hotter climates, the wonderful structures which they make have attracted the notice of most travellers. Some rear huge mounds ; some construct large edifices in the forks of trees; some glue leaves together so as to form a purse ; some excavate the branches of the trees, working out the pith to the extremity of the slenderest twig.
An accurate observer, Dr. J. R. Johnson, remarks, ' 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 visually 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'