Ants i4u 



touch. The antennae are most sensitive organs, and 

 when ants meet they cross their antennae and pat 

 each other. If one finds some large article of food, 

 too heavy for it to carry, it goes forward, and the 

 first fellow it meets it pats with its antennae, and 

 the two start off together for the booty. If a nest 

 is attacked, the workers or soldiers rush around and 

 stroke each other with their antennae, and thus evi- 

 dently give warning or plan a battle for protection. 

 In case an ant finds a comrade in distress it shows 

 great solicitude and activity in giving relief. Yet 

 there are some species that, like the Spartans, kill 

 off the feeble and old, as useless to the colony. When 

 a portion of the colony is removed and kept im- 

 prisoned for a time and then returned, there is great 

 rejoicing on both sides. Gould says they have a 

 way of standing on their hind legs and prancing 

 round under such circumstances, as well as when 

 they enter the cell of their queen, that indicates 

 great joy. Sometimes they get to be very hilarious 

 and wrestle with each other, and carry each other 

 around, as if it were a part of a game they found 

 amusing — a kind of formic football." 



Ants and their Protection from Enemies. — Ants 

 can defend themselves either by biting with their 

 mandibles, or by means of a powerful sting. 

 Wheeler thus records their habits in this respect: 

 "The mandibles are the principal weapons of de- 

 fence, and these in the larger species of Cainponotus 

 and Atta are somtimes employed with telling effect. 

 In the Myrmicinae (Monoinorium, the little red meat- 

 ant, belongs to this group), and the Ponerinae (bull- 



