* 1907. I have noted that this year the brown Ants have varied in colour, or have been replaced in their more usual spots on my gravel walk by others that are nearly if not quite black. And I have also noticed that their habits are somewhat different. The little conical Ant-hills which they make are much smaller, but more numerous, than those of their predecessors, and they seem to burrow more in the adjacent grass lawn. But they keep to almost the same spots. In their daily workings and activities also there is a decided difference. They are very active in the early mornings, but often can scarcely be seen all the mid-day or afternoon, instead of racing about above ground almost the whole day, as the others did. But they may have been influenced in this by the continued cool and showery weather of the season.
One very warm day about noon, in the early part of September, I witnessed some of the proceedings at one of the well-known “wedding ceremonials” of Ants. The whole body of the Ants were swarming on the grass above the nest, and racing about in evidently a great state of excitement. Amongst these were five large winged (Queen) Ants, constantly moving about, though more quietly, and in and out of the nest opening. Also in the group were some forty or more smaller winged (Male) Ants, also moving about upon the ground. None of the winged Ants were flying far about. I watched this state of commotion for some time, then left, and returned in about an hour, when the whole body of these insects had disappeared, presumably into the nest. Whether the brides and bridegrooms were about to take their wedding flight, or whether (as appears most probable) they had just returned, I am unable to state; but I saw no further commotion outside later on in the day.
I have often watched these little creatures at work upon their “heaps,” and have noted how these are gradually built up of aggregations of single grains of earth or sand, which evidently have been dug out grain by grain from the earth, where the excavation is going on, and are then brought in the Ant’s mouth to the surface, and to the top of the rising earth-heap. They are then dropped over its edge, and the Carrier Ant at once races back into the hole presumably for a fresh burden. This process is a very remarkable one, and the way the Ant brings his grain of earth in his mouth and drops it over the edge of the rising Ant-hill, irresistibly reminds one of a railway navvy who wheels his barrow full of earth and tilts it over the edge of the embankment upon which he is at work. The number of single grains in even a small Ant-heap must be very large, and must amount to many thousands, or perhaps to hundreds of thousands. What, then, must be the untiring energy of a small Ant colony, which can reproduce such a granular heap in less than twenty-four hours?