FEEDING THE COAiAlUXK 



simply feeding, but collecting food supplies which they 

 are taking home in their mandibles or stored in their 

 capacious crops for the natural dependents and oth- 

 ers of the formicary entitled thereto. Following with 

 closer attention the trail of the repletes, you observe 

 some of them suddenly disappear at the roots of the tree. 

 Turn back the sod, clear away the leaves ; what do you see ? 



Masses of insects are huddled together in the angles 

 of roots at the foot of the tree and in sundry depressions 

 in the soil. Some are repletes, some are ordinary work- 

 ers; and the latter are stopping or trying to stop the 

 former, who seek to avoid them and to push into certain 

 openings that lead into galleries beneath the surface, 

 which evidently communicate with the central mound. 

 A few succeeJ in this, but many yield to the friendly 

 force and halt. 



And now what? See this replete. She has raised 

 herself upon her two pairs of hind legs until her body 

 slants in a wide angle toward the horizon. And one, 

 two yes,three workers, assuming a like rampant position, 

 have placed their mouths against the replete's mouth. 

 Look closely now, and you will see a droplet of amber 

 or whitish, syrup-like liquid gather upon the delicate, 

 thread-like maxillae beneath the replete's jaw. It is 

 the honey-dew obtained from the aphides upon the oak. 

 It has been forced up from the crop by pressure of the 

 contracting muscular sac that encloses it in other words, 

 by regurgitation. It is greedily lapped by the three 

 " pensioners," and the replete breaks away and disap- 

 pears within one of the gallery doors. All around the 

 foot of the tree are like scenes wrought visiting ants 

 taking toll of the foragers. 1 



1 In connection with these facts, see Nature's Craftsmen, chap. iii. 

 8 103 



