''DEFENCE, NOT DEFIANCE^ 145 



ants are very fond, and they are constantly running 

 about from one gland to another, to sip up the 

 honey as it is secreted. But this is not all : there 

 is a still more wonderful provision of more solid 

 food. At the end of each of the small divisions of 

 the compound leaflet there is, when the leaf first 

 unfolds, a little yellow fruit-like body, united by a 

 point at its base to the end of the pinnacle. 

 Examined through a microscope, this little appen- 

 dage looks like a golden pear. When the leaf first 

 unfolds the little pears are not quite ripe, and the 

 ants are continually going from one to another, 

 examining them. When an ant finds one suffi- 

 ciently advanced it bites the small point of attach- 

 ment ; then, bending down the fruit -like body, it 

 breaks it off and bears it away in triumph to the 

 nest. All the fruit-like bodies do not ripen at once, 

 but successively, so that the ants are kept about the 

 young leaf for some time after it unfolds. Thus the 

 young leaf is always guarded by the ants, and no 

 caterpillar or larger animal could attempt to injure 

 them without being attacked by the little warriors. 

 The fruit-like bodies are about one-twelfth of an 

 inch long, and are about one-third the size of the 

 ants, so that the ant bearing away one is as heavily 

 laden as a man bearing a bunch of plantains. I think 

 these facts show that the ants are really kept by the 

 Acacia as a standing army to protect its leaves from 

 the attacks of herbivorous mammals and insects." 



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