ANT COMMUNITIES 



it mean? The little creature is licking its great host, 

 who bows gently beneath the osculation as the manip- 

 ulator passes from back to neck, from neck to head, 

 from head to face. The recipient plainly enjoys the 

 operation, and reminds one of the domestic cat purring 

 under the stroking of a mistress. 



Here and there other worker Myrmicas are undergoing 

 the same treatment, and the queens and the males, too. 

 In this corner a Myrmica queen, a giantess beside her 

 dwarfish guests, has four or five attendants, all mounted 

 in different positions upon their huge host, and working 

 away eagerly. Indeed, the process seems to be an excit- 

 ing one to them, as their abdomens are kept in almost 

 constant stridulatory movement. Doubtless it is agree- 

 able to both parties; but the act of Leptothorax is not 

 one of pure benevolence. This is the famous shampoo 

 dejeune the dinner shampoo of ants that we are seeing 

 through our trained observer's eyes. There can be no 

 doubt that the wee operators obtain some substance 

 from the body surface of their hosts, but what is its 

 nature, is not easily ascertained. 



It has been suggested that it is a secretion from 

 cutaneous glands, faint but agreeable and edible, and 

 distributed over the body surface, or that it is a 

 salivary secretion spread over the Myrmicas by that 

 mutual licking in which they so often indulge (whose 

 prime motive would seem to be cleanliness), and of 

 which, minute as the quantity is, there is enough to 

 serve the diminutive leptothoracian appetite. This is 

 probable; for the salivary glands of ants are well devel- 

 oped, and, as in the case of the honey-bee, may be 

 good food-stuff, even as used in this indirect way. Here, 

 it may be, we have an explanation, in part at least, of 



2. r >2 



