Ant, an insect belonging to the family for-micidcB (or formicariœ, Latreille), of the suborder hymenoptera or membranous-winged insects. There are numerous genera and several hundred species known and described from various parts of the world. Some species have been famed from remote antiquity for the intelligence displayed in their labors. The habits of others are as yet insufficiently studied, or where ascertained exhibit a lower grade of development. Many species, which are common to the temperate regions of both continents, agree in the following respects: they live in communities consisting of hundreds and even thousands of individuals, of which the fertile females are the Largest, the males next in size, and the infertile females (commonly termed nurses or workers, and improperly neuters) the smallest. The last, however, in some species are of at least two different sizes, which are respectively known as the soldier or major and the minor worker. These differ especially from the fertile females in the lack of development in the ovaries and wings.

All of these forms, however, are hatched from eggs, not observably differing, which are not glued singly to one spot, as in the honey-bee, nor lodged irremovably in cells of clay, as in the case of many wasps, but are scattered about in parcels of three or more, loosely attached to each other, so that they can be separated and carried from place to place at pleasure, during the process of hatching. This is during that season the principal duty of the female and of the nurse ants, as it is afterward to do the same by the large cocoons. This transportation of the eggs has, from their resemblance, led to the erroneous idea that ants lay up grain for winter use; whereas many species never feedat all during the winter, remaining torpid. The eggs are exposed by the worker, or by the female when alone, to the rays of the sun during the early morning, covered from its too powerful influence during the extreme heat of the day, and removed beyond the influence of cold or wet by night. As soon as the larvae or grubs are hatched, they are treated in the same manner.

Until then-maturity the grubs, which are necessarily voracious, since they have not only to take up material sufficient for their own growth, but for the formation of the substance whence to spin their cocoons, are fed by the nurse ant, or by the female when alone, with a liquid disgorged from the stomach of the parent. When a female has founded her colony alone, she must be at work early and late, in order to collect sustenance sufficient for herself and for the support of the 20 or more greedy grubs. As soon as the grubs have attained maturity, if of those species which are destitute of stings, they generally spin their cocoons, of a membranous texture and a brownish-white color, which considerably resemble barleycorns. The cocoons are treated precisely as were the eggs and the grubs, in their exposure to proper temperature, and their removal from undue extremes of heat or cold, until they are ripe for their second birth, when the young ants are cut out of their cerements by the mandibles of the nurse ants.

Early in the pairing season, both males and females are to be seen in great numbers in all the ant hills, provided with glistening wings, mixed with the wingless workers, who keep diligent watch over them, posting regular sentries and never allowing them to escape beyond the limits of the colony without a guard, several of whom may at times be observed dragging back a deserter by the limbs. There always seems to be a disposition among the winged ants to desert the colony, but the workers never accede to this truant disposition, but resist it to the utmost, nor ever yield unless the breeders become too numerous to be fed or guarded by them. The actual copulation does not take place in the ant hills, but at some small distance from them, and not infrequently in mid-air; and scouts are always on the lookout to drag back the fertilized females to the principal settlement, or to form small independent parties, which seize a female and found a colony on their own account. Sometimes it will happen, so great is this propensity to ramble on the part of the females after their impregnation is complete, that an original settlement is wholly deserted, owing to the workers who have gone off in pursuit, if they have been led too far from home to care about return, forming fresh colonies in whatever place they succeed in capturing a fugitive queen.

Occasionally, when an impregnated female escapes by herself, she lays her eggs and establishes her own colony, unassisted by the workers; in which case she herself performs the duties to the eggs which would otherwise be rendered by the nurse ants. The males, after their duties of impregnating the females are performed, are permitted to stray away after their own pleasure, without any effort on the part of the workers to retain them, and die shortly afterward. It was formerly supposed that all ants procured wings at a certain stage of their growth; but it was discovered by the younger Huber that in the males and females they are gradually developed from the first day of their existence, until, when their purpose has been fulfilled, they are dislocated and cast aside like worn-out'clothes. Besides the labors of the working ants, or neuters, already described, they have the task of forming the streets, chambers, and habitations of the colony, repairing them, thatching them, fortifying them against the weather" by various operations of mining, masonry, or carpentry, performed with wonderful skill, and under circumstances which prove the possession of some powers or senses beyond our comprehension.

It is, however, noticeable that the possession of elbowed or flail-shaped antenna) is almost invariably associated with a high degree of intelligence, evidenced by constructive ability, command of language, etc, as in the bees, wasps, and ants. - The most remarkable of the mining ants are the formica sanguinaria of Germany and the F. cœspitum or tuft ant of England, which perforate long galleries in the clay, removing all the rubbish, and building buttresses to support their work, by aid of their mandibles only, and then overcasting the whole with a thatch of grass stems and heather against wet or cold. The most common of the mason ants are the red and yellow field ants, which erect superficial habitations; first raising pillars, then springing arches from pillar to pillar, and lastly erecting above them the loose piles of soil which we know as ant hills. Their materials for these edifices are the soil, sand, and clay, kneaded with rain water into a tenacious mortar, which is besmeared over wheat stalks, blades of grass, or any casual supports which they can find.

The carpentering ants are those which, like the emmet, F. fuliginosa, of Europe, and trie F. caryœ or walnut ant of the United States, perforate their cells in the solid timber of growing trees, boring or chiselling them out, side by side, at all sorts of divergent curves, and sometimes at right angles one to the other, appar-. ently in conformity with no plan, and carried on in accordance with the will of the excavator only, until they come so closely into relation with another series of workings that the divisions between them are not thicker than ordinary letter paper, when they instantly terminate, or turn aside, without in any known instance perforating the partition between the several galleries. - There is a considerable variety in the food of ants. A favorite article of diet is honey in some of its modifications, but more especially the secretions of the various species of aphides, known as honey dew, which is found besmearing the leaves of plants, and which is so injurious to the vegetables when it becomes thick enough to obstruct the pores; and it is on this account that wherever aphides abound, ants will ever be found attending on their motions.

Some varieties of ants are in the habit of capturing rootsucking aphides and imprisoning them in their cells, with a view to feeding on their honey dew. In this case the ants take the same care of the "root lice" as they do of their own young. Many ants subsist largely on decaying animal and vegetable matter, rendering themselves very serviceable as scavengers, and as assistants to the naturalists in the preparation and cleaning of the skeletons of small animals for museums. The allusion in Prov. vi. 6-8 to the habits of an Asiatic species, is also applicable to a Texan ant, myrmiea mole-faciens, which is reported by observers to not only feed upon a certain grain, the seed of aristida stricta, but also to plant, cultivate, and harvest it, laying it up in dry cells " against the rainy day." This species, sometimes called the "agricultural ant," builds "paved cities, constructs roads, and sustains a large military force." Myrmiea molesta, the "troublesome" or the "little red ant," is of a reddish yellow, the worker measuring only 6/100 of an inch in length, and is the great pest of houses in many parts of the United States. In other places a large black ant (F. Pennsyl-vanica) takes its place, destroying decaying timbers, books, provisions, specimens of natural history, furs, and other property.

Very small ants abound in South America, whose bite is so sharp that they are called fire ants; they are very annoying and destructive, making up in numbers what they lack in size. - Some species, especially the wood ant, F. rufa, and the Amazon or warrior ant, F. rufesscens, as well as the sanguinary ant, F. sanguinaria, are literally slave-holders. They sally out in great swarms on belligerent and predatory excursions, for the purpose of capturing and bringing home to their own colonies the eggs and cocoons of other tribes, generally of the dusky ant, F. fusca, which, when hatched in the fortresses of the victors, are compelled to lifelong labor. Independent of the annual migratory disposition of all the species, for the purpose of forming new colonies, sudden impulses, probably connected with facility of obtaining food, at times appear to seize on certain varieties of ants, leading them all to take wing simultaneously. Strange relations may be found in the "History of the Berlin Academy " for 1749, in the German "Ephemerides," and in the Journal de physique for 1790, of vast clouds of ants, darkening the air, and having a curious intestine motion, like that of the aurora borealis, unconnected with their line of flight, being seen at divers places, and, when they fell, literally covering the earth, so that one could not tread, without crushing them at every footfall.

For particulars concerning the habits and ravages of the great white ant of the tropics, see Teemites, for that insect is not properly an ant. Du Chaillu has graphically described the formidable legions of the Cashikonay ant of Africa, before which all animals flee. - See the works of Baron de Geer and the younger Huber, Packard's "Guide to the Study of Insects" (Salem, 1868 et seq.), and Fitch's "Reports on the Insects of New York."