SUPPLYING THE COMMUNAL RATIONS 



no doubt, at times especially by the hordes that prey 

 upon our gardens, orchards, and fields, and compel a 

 ceaseless vigilance to save our crops. But, on the other 

 hand, it is gratifying to reflect that Flora's bounty to 

 ants and their insect allies is repaid by a service which 

 preserves her domain by perpetuating the life of plants ; 

 for the insects that pass from flower to flower and plunge 

 into the cups, distribute the fertilizing pollen upon which 

 fruitfulness and life depend. This symbiosis between 

 plants and insects is thus a necessary condition for 

 both ; and that it has existed from the beginning, a study 

 of fossil insects shows. 



The above seems, as indeed it is, a vast field where- 

 from to cull a living. But one, perhaps as wide and even 

 more lasting, is open in the waste products of nature. 

 Ants are universal scavengers. They are fond of animal 

 oils and juices. Countless millions of insects perish 

 every season. What becomes of them? They drop by 

 the waysides of their lives, and drift into all manner of 

 crannies and corners. Hereto the ants follow them. 

 The searching power of the antennae is something mar- 

 vellous. It has been compared to that of men's hands 

 were the sense of smell to be located in the tips of all 

 their fingers also, where such a delicate sense of touch 

 abides. What human hands could do, in such a sup- 

 posed case, to follow up and search out odors, the 

 movable organs of smell, the antennae, do actually 

 accomplish for ants. 



Thus are revealed to them the carcasses of the innumer- 

 able hosts of fallen insects; and often they may be seen 

 headed for their homes, dragging with them whole 

 bodies or parts thereof, and making painful headway 



therewith through the jungle of grasses and weeds. 



81 



