for a rainy day. This kind also "builds paved cities, constructs roads and keeps a large military force."
Some varieties, like the amazon or warrior ant, are slaveholders. They go out on warlike expeditions against tribes of smaller ants and capture their eggs and cocoons, which they bring home, dooming the ants hatched from them to lifelong labor.
The honey ant is a very curious creature, having a distended abdomen filled wholly with honey. Active workers bring in the honey, and it is stored with the honey-bearers. These cling to the ceiling of the Underground chambers, and in time of need give forth their store drop by drop.
The common household ants are the little red ants, the small black ant and the pavement ant. Their nests, usually in walls, are very hard to locate. Their presence can be discouraged by spraying with kerosene the crack through which entrance is had to kitchen or pantry.
There are various kinds of ant homes. Some have underground chambers and galleries, some occupy chambers and galleries in decaying wood. Some ants construct mounds. Some build nests of a paste-like substance. In the tropics there is a great variety in materials used and manner of building.
The only insects likely to be mistaken for ants are the termites or white ants, which belong to an entirely different order of insects. These latter live in vast communities, generally in the tropics, and do much damage by eating out the interior of articles of furniture, chairs, tables, sills of houses, etc. They are very productive, one female laying as many as 80,000 eggs. Their homes are very large, sometimes twelve feet high, in the shape of a cone, and so strongly built that a man may stand upon them. The queen is imprisoned in a large chamber in the interior.
Ants have been a most interesting object of study from the earliest times; reference being made to them in the Bible and in poetry and f abl 8. Many stories are told of their seeming intelligence, much written of the curious features of their lives — their battles, their mushroom-growing, the many guests they entertain in their colonies, the cleanliness of their homes, etc., etc. See Lubbock: Ants, Bees and Wasps; McCook: The Agricultural Ant; The Honey Ants and Tenants of an Old Farm; Howard: The Insect Book; La Fontaine's fable: The Grasshopper and the Ant.
Antaeus (an-te'us), in ancient fable, a giant of Libya, son of Neptune and Terra. He was a mighty wrestler and could not be conquered so long as he remained on and was in contact with the earth. Whoever came to Libya had to wrestle with him, and with the skulls of the slain he built a temple to his father Neptune. Hercules finally conquered him by lifting him from the ground and strangling him in the air.
Antarctic, meaning opposite to the Arctic or northern pole.
Antarctic Circle is one of the smaller circles of the globe, twenty-three and a half degrees from the south pole.
Antarctic Ocean, is the name of the ocean lying within the Antarctic circle. It was long thought impassable for ships on account of the ice, but of late years many voyages have been made and tracts of barren land observed. The features of the Antarctic Ocean are constant fogs and currents, unnumbered icebergs and the beautiful aurora borealis (which see).
Antarc'tic Exploration. Since the notable expedition in 1840, to the South Polar Seas, of Captain James Ross and Dr. (Sir Joseph) Hooker in the Erebus and Terror, there have been several researches in the region. In 1901-4, Captain R. P. Scott penetrated by sledges the interior of Victoria Land, and carried the British flag to 82° if S. Other expeditions embrace those of the German Antarctic Expedition (1901—03); the Swedish Expedition in the Antarctic, which was lost; and the Scottish-National Antarctic Expedition (1902-04) in the Scotia. A notable expedition was that of Lieutenant Shackleford, who sailed from England in Aug., 1907, and reached latitude 88° 23', Jan. 9, 1909. It remained for Roald Amundsen to win the long-sought prize. Sailing from Norway in 1910, he wintered in Whales Bay, and in Oct., 1911, started with a dog and sledge outfit for the south pole. Climbing the ice barrier to the great polar plateau and struggling over the great polar plain, he reached the pole Dec. 14-17, 1911.
Ant-Eater, a toothless animal found in Central and South America feeding on white ants and other insects. The long, flexible tongue, covered with sticky saliva, is protruded among the insects and suddenly withdrawn when a number have collected upon it.
There are a number of forms. The great ant-eater is about four feet long with a large tail covered with bushy hair. The color is gray, marked by a band of black on the breast and toward the shoulders; the feet and forelegs are white. The claws are long and strong, adapted for digging. It sleeps a great deal, and lies curled up with its
