Ants. 177 



upon sweets, like bees and wasps and ants. It doesn't 

 need more than one threatening movement with the sting 

 of a Croiwgaster to make a grub conclude it had better 

 go somewhere else. If the ant does not sting it sprays 

 a stream of formic acid that blinds and maddens its 

 opponent, as well it might, for it is exactly the same stuff 

 that is in nettles. Some ants can spit venom eighteen 

 inches. And, as if stinging was not enough, when an 

 ant bites it never lets go. You can pull its head off and it 

 still grips. \Yhen a South American Indian gets a bad 

 cut he does not stitch it up, but draws the lips of the 

 wound together, makes ants bite them, and then snips 

 their bodies off. Their jaws hold the cut together till 

 it heals. 



This oak-tree honey has developed a special industry 

 among the ants in the Garden of the Gods. They collect 

 it and store it, not in cells like the bees, but in the crops 

 of their fellow-workers. It is probably the only animal 

 on earth that converts itself into a self-sealing can for 

 the good of the community. They hang to the roof of 

 their dwellings and every time a worker comes in with a 

 load of honey and rams it down their throats, " Oh ! oh ! ' 

 I can fancy them .gasping, ' that's enough. Oh ! I feel 

 as if I should burst. So distressing. Oh, now ! Oh, 

 p'.ease, please wait till I get this down. What! more? 

 Well, this is the last. Oh, dear! Here comes another. ' 

 Their little tummies are as tight as drumheads, and they 

 stretch more and more till they get to be as big as a 

 Delaware grape. Their poor little insides are crowded 

 up so that they practically do not exist, and the creature 

 is a mere crop on legs, utterly helpless. When another 

 ant gets hungry it goes up to one of these rotunds and 

 tickles it, kitchy-kitchy, and feeds on the honey it regurgi- 

 tates. The Mexicans put a plateful of these rotunds on 



