ANT COMMUNITIES 



whence these ants are issuing. It stands silent in the 

 shadow of the tall surrounding trees, its quietude broken 

 only by the movements of a few worker-ants, who are 

 lazily dumping pellets of soil from one of the few upper 

 ports. At the base of the cone, where most of the 

 gates are located, the column stretches across the grove 

 to the aphis-covered oak. Give the mound a sharp blow 

 with foot or hand. What a change! Instantly the 

 whole community is aroused. From every gate pours 

 forth a surging torrent of irate sentinels, followed bv 



C_> O / / 



other inmates, until, in an incredibly brief time, the 



*/ 



mound is covered with angry insects. They run to and 

 fro, their bodies a-quiver as they go. They challenge 

 one another with crossed antennae. They peer at every 

 unusual object in their way. They startle, and stand 

 rampant at the vibration of every sharp sound. The 

 surface fairly buzzes with the excited creaturelings, 

 their whole mien and attitude saying, unmistakably: 

 "Our home has been attacked! We are in danger! Rally 

 to the defence! Death to our enemies!" (Fig. 61). 



We change the field of observation. The writer was 

 once standing before the great round web of a female 

 Orange Argiope (Argiope aurantium), a large and hand- 

 some orbweaving spider [McG. 24, pp. 97, 98, vol. i] ? 

 testing with a tuning-fork its sense of hearing, when a 

 bee flew by in exploitation of a flowering honeysuckle 

 vine that covered an arbor on which the web was hung. 

 The droning of its wing-strokes as it flitted from flower 

 to flower fell upon the ear as a token of content. To 

 all and sundry it said, or seemed to say, what no doubt it 

 felt: "I am a well-satisfied bee!" 



But in a hapless moment it touched the spider's orb. 

 Its feet were entangled in the sticky threads. Straight- 



124 



