ANT COMMUNITIES 



Who are these visiting ants? Are they highway 

 robbers? They are certainly not aliens, for the rela- 

 tions of all concerned are most friendly. There is, in- 

 deed, here and there a slight show of force in the deten- 

 tion of a replete who has more than usual reluctance to 

 part with its stored sweets, but there is no element of 

 real hostility therein. Plainly repletes and pensioners 

 are citizens of one community, and their behavior must 

 torm a part of a natural social arrangement. What is it ? 



Not all at once, but gradually, the facts dawned that 

 repletes, acting as communal foragers, were carrying 

 supplies to the formicary ; that numbers of their fellows, 

 engaged as builders, sentinels, and nurses, had left their 

 several duties for a little while to feed, and instead of 

 spending time and energy due to the commonwealth in 

 gathering food afield, had come out to tap the garnered 

 stores of their comrades, and, having relieved their hun- 

 ger, would return to their labors. In short, they had 

 been drawing rations from a sort of field commissary 

 department. They are no devotees, these adventurers, 

 of the theory that, 



"To feed were best at home; 

 But thence, the sauce is ceremony; 

 Meeting were bare without it." 



There certainly seemed to be scant ceremony in this 

 method of banqueting abroad. In truth, it had the 

 outward look of levying mail or highway robbery, al- 

 though there was no real violence on the part of those 

 who bade the repletes "stand and deliver." Indeed, 

 upon due reflection, the affair resolved itself into a benefi- 

 cent social function, of which the following appears to 

 be the spirit and intent: The ants at work in or about 



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