SANITATION- -PERSONAL BENEVOLENCE 



stage, are so freely sponged with the rasped and moist 

 tongues of their caretakers that there is little chance 

 that dirt or parasite or fungoid germs shall remain. 

 Even after adult life is achieved the friendly offices of 

 cleansing are exchanged between neighbors, and one 

 will see a mutual shampooing among the ants in his 

 artificial nests. 



The need for personal cleanliness is greatly increased 

 by the underground life of ants, which subjects them to 

 attacks of sundry vegetable moulds and parasitic insects. 

 Some of my experimental colonies have been destroyed 

 by mites (Fig 94); and it was pitiful to see the little 

 creatures' struggles to protect themselves from the in- 

 vasion of the hordes of minute parasites, against whose 

 attacks they were seriously, even fatally, hampered by 

 the artificial conditions of their unnatural life. The value 

 of special armature of legs and jaws and tongue, and the 

 habits of ceaseless cleanliness engendered by their use, 

 were mightily emphasized by one's observation of this 

 unfortunate episode in the career of these imprisoned 

 colonies. The thought occurred that the habit of feed- 

 ing upon fungus growths, and the cultivation of fungus 

 gardens in the AttidaB (cutting ants), may have arisen 

 from the use of the tongue and jaws in freeing them- 

 selves and their commune from the attacks of vegetable 

 moulds. 



The location of the larvse is often changed, a useful 

 sanitary precaution. The baneful effects of sudden 

 changes in temperature and humidity are met by shift- 

 ing the antlings nearer the surface or farther within 

 the cone. For such manipulation among the mound- 

 builders their elevated and perforated structures are 

 well adapted, and for this, in part, may have been de- 



281 



