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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



wondered how they accomplished so 

 much. Never have I seen any concert- 

 ed action among them. One ant picks 

 up a piece of gravel too large to carry ; 

 does another come to help? Not he. 

 Everyone works individually and yet 

 they all live in a communistic colony. 

 What a mecca for an anarchist, every- 

 one does as he pleases. No ruler to 

 rule ; no boss to give orders. Yet every- 

 thing goes on toward the one great end ; 

 a substantial home and an abundant 

 storehouse. I have, as I sat, wondered 

 what master mind planned it all. Can 

 we really be sure there are no over- 

 seers? May in: each worker get "sealed 

 orders" at night for the day's work? 

 A hundred ants may be near the en- 

 trance when a worker conies home 

 dragging a load too big to carry up the 

 side to the door. Yet there is no one 

 that feels enough responsibility to help, 

 much less to give a command. The 

 load carrier may lay it down for a mo- 

 ment, either to rest or to look around 

 and then comes the funny part, another 

 ant grabs hold and starts away but by 

 this time the original owner returns and 

 if he finds it, grabs hold too and then 

 begins a tug-of-war, neither getting any 

 where for they pull in opposite direc- 

 tions. Nothing is accomplished until 

 one or the other gives up. The two 

 ants could take the load up to the 

 entrance with ease but it has to be done 

 by one if at all. 



Down deep in these tunnels in the 

 earth has, somehow, been worked out a 

 plan of housekeeping unequaled any- 

 where else in the animal world. Little 

 beings from one-eighth to three-eighths 

 of an inch long by sheer manual labor 

 have made a house of collossal pro- 

 portion to theii size. I say by manual 

 labor alone for it seems to me that 

 there is no brain work. Of course the 

 plan of the nest represents great inge- 

 nuity and brain work if it was made 

 at one time. It was probably done in 

 the remote past through an evolutionary 

 rather than a thought process. I can- 

 not conceive of any animal great or 

 small which now shows such a lack of 

 brains, making a plan for a dwelling 

 containing rooms and halls with arched 

 ceilings and winding stairways con- 

 necting floor with floor. Yet that is 

 what we find in these nests and below 

 the surface for some eight feet. An ant 

 picks up a pebble, starts, perhaps in the 



direction of his home but quite often in 

 an opposite direction. If he comes to a 

 weed, stick, stone or other hindrance 

 instead of going around it he simply 

 climbs over it load and all. When he 

 gets it to the base of the nest he fre- 

 quently has to stop, if it is large, leave 

 it there for there is no one to help him 

 take it up the steep sides. Again he 

 may drop it along the side of the nest 

 and then, I have seen what seems to me 

 to be gleams of intelligence. He looks the 

 load over carefully, walks around it 

 and then, in many cases, grasps it and 

 goes to the top and puts it there to roll 

 down and find its own resting place. I 

 believe their hills are covered, in the 

 main, in this manner. 



When they are carrying seeds to their 

 homes they will pick up a seed, covering 

 and all and carry it home and then hull 

 it after it has been placed in the gran- 

 eries and bring the hulls out again. 

 More brain work would mean less labor 

 here. 



I have often wondered how they 

 managed to clear the space around their 

 homes so completely of vegetation. I 

 have never observed them at this work- 

 to any great extent. What I have seen 

 has revealed many little traits that 

 caused me to wonder. An ant will work 

 at trying to cut down a large weed, for 

 nothing must grow within a given ra- 

 dius, for a while and then scamper off 

 and no more would be seen of her (all 

 the workers are females). This action 

 will bring up many questions but why 

 take space to ask them? Once I picked 

 a little hardworking member up and he 

 said "let me go" in a very forcible man- 

 ner. He grabbed me with his jaws and 

 then set his body to working in such a 

 way as to give me a sharp sting every 

 tenth of a second. No wonder he can 

 cut down weeds and grass and drive 

 away all enemies for he has two stout 

 jaws each with seven teeth and a sharp 

 stinger. 



Would that I could see within the 

 home ! What little I have to tell I have 

 had to piece little bits of information 

 gathered from time to time, together. 

 By carefully removing the inch or so 

 of gravel we come to the soil which has 

 been brought up in the process of mak- 

 ing the galleries upon galleries we 

 find there. Inside of the saucer-shaped 

 opening, that is just underneath the 

 outer surface, of a morning in the sum- 



