formicarium

Gwethyn loved animals, and was ready to wax enthusiastic over the waltzing mice, the guinea-pigs, the rabbits, the silk-worms, and the formicarium with its wonderful nest of ants.

They climb the tree, station themselves on the edge of a leaf and make a circular incision with their scissor-like jaws; the piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, held vertically between the jaws, is then borne off to the formicarium.

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.

In every formicarium or ant colony there are three sets of individuals—males, females, and workers; but the saübas have the singularity of possessing three classes of workers.

It was a wholesale and entire migration; and the next day the formicarium down which I had last poured the carbolic acid was entirely deserted.