426 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



The antenna-comb on the front leg 

 of an ant. 



ceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, July and 

 October, 1901. 



It is natural enough that the ant, depending so much on her antennas 

 for impressions and stimuli, should be very particular to keep them clean 

 and in good order. She is well equipped to do this, for she has a most 

 efficient antennae brush on her wrist; it is practically a circular comb, 

 which just fits over the antenna; and to see the ants using these brushes 

 is one of the most common sights in the ant-nest and one of the most 

 amusing. The ant usually commences by lifting her leg over one antenna 

 and deftly passing it through the brush, and then licks the brush clean by 



passing it through her mouth, as a cat 

 washes her face; then she cleans the 

 other in a similar manner and possibly 

 finishes by doing both alternately, 

 winding up with a flourish, like a 

 European gentleman curling his mus- 

 taches. Her antennae cleaned, she 

 starts promptly to do something, for 

 she is a little six-footed Martha, al- 

 ways weighed down or buoyed up by 

 many duties and cares. Keeping her 

 antenna? on the qui vive, she assures 

 herself, by touch, of the nature of any 

 obstacle in her path. If she meets 

 another ant, their antennae cross and 

 pat each other, and thus they learn 

 whether they are sisters or aliens; if they are sisters, they may stand for 

 some time with their antennae Buttering. One who has watched ants care- 

 fully, is compelled to believe that they thus convey intelligence of some 

 sort, one to the other. The ant is a good sister "according to her lights;" 

 if her sister is hungry, she will give to her, even from her own partially 

 digested food; the two will often stand mouth to mouth for some minutes 

 during this process; if she feels inclined, she will also help a sister at her 

 toilet, and lick her with her tongue as one cow licks another. The tongue 

 of the ant is very useful in several ways; with it she takes up liquids, and 

 also uses it with much vigor as a washcloth. Sometimes an ant will 

 spend a half hour or more at her own toilet, licking every part of her own 

 body that her tongue can reach, meanwhile going through all sorts of 

 contortions to accomplish it; sh e uses her feet to scrub portions of her 

 body, not to be reached by her 

 tongue. 



But it is as infant nurse that 

 the ant is a shining example. 

 No mother instinct is hers, for 

 she has yielded the power of 

 motherhood to the exigencies of 

 business life, since all workers 

 are females but are undeveloped 

 sexually. She shows far more 

 sense in the care of her infant 

 sisters, than the mother instinct 

 often supplies to human mothers. Ants making their toilets 



