ANT COMMUNITIES 



Let us consider a little more in detail this theory that 

 winter conditions may have influenced the formation 

 of communal affinities and associations between ants 

 and alien insects, as well as between separate species and 

 genera of ants. Do the facts seem to justify it? One 

 night, while encamped among the ant-hills of Brush 

 Mountain, Pennsylvania, late in August, 1876, there 

 fell a heavy frost that well disclosed the effect upon ants 

 of such temperature changes. [McC. 2, p. 284.] At 

 3.45 A.M. I made the round of the hills, and found their 

 inmates in a state of semi-torpidity. Tapping the sur- 

 face and stamping upon the surrounding stones, which 

 heretofore had always brought out a host of workers, 

 failed to arouse a single sentinel. I dug into one mound 

 eight inches before finding ants, and these showed little 

 activity a marked contrast with their usual mode. 



Then the aphis feeding-grounds were inspected. A 

 white-oak tree near a stone wall, whereon numbers of 

 aphids were domiciled, was a popular emmet resort. 

 Mounting the wall, I turned the lantern light upon the 

 overhanging boughs. The aphids were in their places 

 on the leaves and branches, surrounded and covered bv 



V 



groups of ants. But all were semi-torpid. The frost 

 had surprised them at their feast, and left them frigid 

 upon the spot. Many of them had abdomens distended 

 by crops gorged with honey-dew, which showed trans- 

 lucent as the light fell upon them. In my long ex- 

 perience of a full generation in observing emmet ways, I 

 recall few more striking visions than that. If one could 

 only have preserved those congealed specimens for the 

 museum ! 



But as the sun returned with his wonted August 

 fervor, the statuesque groups began gradually to dissolve. 



226 



