Well, these _Formica fusca_ folks are as different from that Arkansas man as anything you could imagine. First of all, being ants, they are anything but lazy; secondly, they never put off needed work on their roofs on account of rain. In fact, they _choose_ the first wet day to do it. As soon as the rain begins they build up a thick terrace on the roof of the old dwelling, carrying in their jaws little piles of finely ground earth which they spread out with their hind legs. Then, by hollowing out this roof, they turn it into a new story. Last of all they put on the ceiling. You see the rain helps them in mixing their clay. There are ants that build up vaulted viaducts or covered ways, and they use clay for that.[13] They make the clay by mixing earth with saliva. Some of these viaducts reach out from the house--the ants' house--to their "cow" pasture. [13] The scientific name for this particular kind of ant is _Lasius niger_. [Illustration: AN ANT CARRYING ONE OF HER COWS] You know about how ants keep cows, little bugs called aphids? The aphids feed on plants, and the clay viaducts protect the ants from their enemies and from the sun in going to and from the pasture; for this particular family of ants doesn't like the sun. They make clay sheds for their cattle, too. Here and there along the clay viaduct are large roomy spaces, cow-sheds, so to speak--where the little honey cows gather when they aren't feeding. Another kind of ant builds earth huts around its cow pastures. The large red ants (_F. rufa_), sometimes called "horse ants," build hills as large as small haycocks. II. THE TERMITES AND THEIR TOWERS OF BABEL But speaking of big buildings, did you ever hear of a skyscraper a mile high? Well the home of the six-footed farmer I am going to tell you about now is as much taller than he is as a mile-high skyscraper would be taller than a man. The remarkable little creatures that build these skyscrapers are called "termites." Termites are also known as "white ants." This seems funny when we know that they are neither "ants" nor are they white. The young of the workers are white, to be sure, but the grown-ups are of various colors, and never milky white as they are when young. The termites were first called "white ants" in books of travel because the termites the travellers saw were the young people. HOW TERMITES ARE LIKE THE ANTS The termites are really closer relatives of dragon-flies, cockroaches, and crickets than of the ants, but they do look a great deal like an ant, and they have many of the ways of the ants. As in the case of ants, all the members of one community are the children of one queen. The king lives with the queen in a private apartment. Sometimes--as with human royalties--the king and queen will have separate residences, but the termite royalties always live in the same house with their people; they are very democratic.