CHAPTER IV 

 SUPPLYING THE COMMUNAL RATIONS 



FOR all living creatures food is a first demand of 

 nature. The struggle to obtain it in the vegetable 

 and animal kingdoms keeps the wheels of life in active 

 motion ; and day and night, secretly and openly, silently 

 and with sound and stir of mighty conflict, it goes on 

 among and around all beings. Its influence in shaping 

 life and habit is constant and incalculably great. In- 

 deed, in many, perhaps in most cases, it is decisive at 

 least in certain epochs of the individual and communal 

 career. Thus, a study of the food supply of ants is of 

 highest importance in determining their natural history. 



As a general rule, covering most of our common ants, 

 the founder of the future commune is a single fertilized 

 female. After the marriage flight she seeks in the vici- 

 nage of her alightment a suitable site in the ground 

 or in wood, according to her instinct. Therein she pre- 

 pares a brooding-cell, which is commonly forced into an 

 oval shape by her rotary movements in forming the 

 wall that shuts her in. This cell becomes the tomb of 

 the great majority of females, but a few survive to be 

 the founders of communes. 



The eggs laid by the queen are tended and the young 

 are fed by her during her isolation, which may last 

 three-quarters of a year. As she never leaves her 

 hermitage, whence comes her food supply? Nature has 



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