SUPPLYING THE COMMUNAL RATIONS 



general scavenger work of nature, as well as their part 

 in fertilizing the blossoming plants, may be set to the 

 credit side of their account. Besides, if folk would 

 follow the author's rule to put in one root-stock for the 

 birds and insects for every two set out for himself, there 

 would be enough and to spare for all. 



Preying upon insect remains and animal oils, lapping 

 the nectar of flowers and the sweets of fruit, by no means 

 exhaust the sources from which foraging ants may draw 

 their rations. They are free-lances, and they do not 

 scruple to ply their freebooting against all and sundry 

 whom they are able to better in a quarrel over booty. 

 After the manner of human cannibals, they feed upon 

 their vanquished foes; indeed, the formal raids of 

 slave-making ants are chiefly for food. Many thousands 

 of their victims are carried home and eaten. The 

 tender larvae and pupse are kept in store for the slaughter 

 as human butchers keep live-stock and fowl, though one 

 cannot aver that the ants deliberately fatten them for 

 that purpose. Some captives, and at times a number, 

 escape the shambles and become auxiliaries or slaves. 

 But large communes of these kidnappers have been 

 known to end an active season of slave-catching with 

 but few if any increase in the number of slaves. All 

 their captives had been eaten! 



The same methods are quite commonly carried out 

 on a smaller scale among various species. I have turned 

 up a flat stone, beneath which was a large nest of small 

 ants. Their larva*, still smaller than themselves, lay 

 in heaps against the under surface. Scarcely had the 

 stone been lifted ere several larger ants, representing 

 two other separate species, rushed in and began plunder- 

 ing the colony. They evidently had been prowling 



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