SOCIAL LIFE 241 



quotes observations on the East African Anomma molestunty 

 a community of which '' occupies the same nest until it has 

 destroyed all the available prey in the locality," an operation 

 v^hich may occupy " some eight or ten days," then '* the 

 colony migrates to a new nest." The fertile females of most 

 Doryline ants are blind and wingless, resembling workers 

 in their structure much more closely than queens. They 

 are, however, when compared with the workers, of relatively 

 enormous size as are also the heavily built males furnished 

 v^th wings and eyes (Fig. 61). 



The feeding habits of these " drivers " seem crude and 

 primitive when compared with the elaborate leaf-cutting 

 and fungus-growing performances of the species of Atta 

 previously mentioned. Wheeler believes that the hunting, 

 pastoral, and agricultural modes of life have succeeded one 

 another among ants as they are commonly believed to have 

 done among men. Those ants whose staple food is honey 

 or " honey- dew " illustrate the pastoral stage of society, 

 because their sweet nourishment is obtained largely from 

 the intestines of aphids, scales, and other insects which suck 

 sap from plants. They are often tended and protected 

 by the ants whose behaviour in connection with the '' guests " 

 of their societies will be discussed later in this chapter. 

 Many ants, however, go directly to plants and obtain supplies 

 of sweet sap " from small glands or nectaries situated on 

 their leaves or stems, where it is eagerly sought and imbibed " 

 (Wheeler, 1923), or lick up the honey-dew which has been 

 voided by aphids and spread over foliage and shoots 

 Worker-ants that collect honey or honey- dew have the habit, 

 on returning to the nest, of regurgitating from the crop a 

 portion of what they have swallowed, allowing drops of it 

 to be licked up by those workers which remain in the nest 

 and act as nurses to the larvae, to whom a share of the liquid 

 food is passed on. Ants are incited to disgorge this liquid 

 food when touched or stroked by the feelers of their com- 

 rades. Such workers tend therefore to act as temporary 

 reservoirs of food material, and in many groups with this 

 habit (Camponottis, Lasiiis, and Prenolepis, for example) the 



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