Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, page 49 by Various Authors
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y a species of ant whose habits are unknown to the scientific world. Each mound is surrounded by a circle of small chips and pieces of charcoal, which the busy inhabitants often bring from a long distance. The hills are regular in outline, with a crater-like depression on the summit, in the centre of which is the gateway or entrance.
These ants do not live in vast communities like the mound-builders of the North, but each hill seems to be a republic by itself, though separate colonies in the same neighborhood have friendly relations with each other. Their color is rufous or reddish-brown, and they are furnished with stings like bees and wasps, and, like the honey-bee, always die after inflicting a wound, for their stings are torn from their bodies and left in the victim. The pain inflicted is about the same as that caused by the sting of the honey-bee. But they are not as vicious as most stinging insects: they will submit to considerable rough treatment before resorting to this last resource.
There are three sets of neuters in each colony--major and minor workers and soldiers: also one wingless queen is found in each nest. The head is very large, especially that of the soldier.[1] The workers minor--which are the true workers--have regular well-defined teeth on the mandibles, while most of the soldiers have merely the rudiments or teeth entirely obsolete. All the queens which I have found--eighteen in number--have perfectly smooth mandibles, without the least vestige of a tooth.
Early in December, 1877, I brought a large colony of these ants from one of the hills, including the workers major and minor and soldiers, and established them in a glass jar which I placed in my study. They very soon commenced work, tunnelling the earth and erecting a formicary, as nearly as they could after the pattern of their home on the barrens. The mining was done entirely by the small workers. At first they refused all animal food, but ate greedily fruit and sugar, and all kinds of seeds which I gave them were