. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 138 HYMENOPTERA CHAP. terranean mining. Their systems of tunnels and nests are known to extend through many square yards of earth, and it is said on the authority of Hamlet Clark that one species tunnelled under the bed of the river Parahylja at a spot where it was as broad as the Thames at London Bridge. A considerable number of ants, instead of mining in the ground, form chambers in wood; these are usually very close to one another, because, the space being limited, galleries cannot be indulged in. Camponotus ligni'£)erdus in Europe, and C. pennsyl-
. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 138 HYMENOPTERA CHAP. terranean mining. Their systems of tunnels and nests are known to extend through many square yards of earth, and it is said on the authority of Hamlet Clark that one species tunnelled under the bed of the river Parahylja at a spot where it was as broad as the Thames at London Bridge. A considerable number of ants, instead of mining in the ground, form chambers in wood; these are usually very close to one another, because, the space being limited, galleries cannot be indulged in. Camponotus ligni'£)erdus in Europe, and C. pennsyl- vanicus in jSTorth America, work in this way. Our British Lasius fuliginosus lives in decayed wood. Its chambers are said by Forel to consist of a paper-like substance made from small fragments of wood. Gryptocertis burrows in branches. Colohopsis lives in a similar manner, and Forel in- forms us that a worker with a large head is kept stationed within the entrance, its great head acting as a stopper; when it sees a nest-fellow dteirous of entering the nest, this animated and intel- ligent front-door then retreats a little so as to make room for ingress of the friend. Forel has observed that in the tropics of America a large number of species of ants live in the stems of grass. There is also quite a fauna of ants dwelling in hollow thorns, in spines, on trees or , or in dried parts of pithy plants; and the tropics also furnish a number of species that make nests of delicate paper, or that spin together by means of silk the leaves of trees. One eastern —fabricates a gauze-like web of after the. Fig. 59.—Ant-plant, liyrhwjjhytimi inon- tauum. (After Forel.) species—Polyrhachis spinigera- silk, with which it lines a subterranean chamber manner of a trap-door spider. Some species of ants appear to find both food and shelter. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration an
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