NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



down and hither and thither on the surface. The trout 

 were feeding along the edges of these windrows, gener- 

 ally in groups. Ten, twenty, fifty fish would be half 

 out of water at the same instant within a square rod. 

 The ants did not reappear the next day. All of the 

 millions that fell into the lakes became food for other 

 animals. Those which the trout did not get, the in- 

 numerable inhabitants of the water ate when they sank. 



These ants appear at about the same date every year 

 and in the same numbers. The trout are fond of them, 

 and feed ravenously upon them, as they do on the gnats, 

 which also come in annual swarms. But, though there 

 may be millions on the water, the fish do not touch 

 them if they he still and seem dead, as trout demand 

 living objects for food. As an ant struggles on the 

 surface among its dead companions, it attracts the eye 

 of the fish, which rises and takes it. Mr. Prime kept 

 no specimens, and one can only guess at the species 

 represented. Many of them may have been of the same 

 species as the Alleghany Momitain swarm just described. 

 At all events, we have an authentic account by a careful 

 and competent observer, which amply authorizes the 

 fugitive stories of the incalculable numbers of flying 

 ants seen in swarms from time to time in various parts 

 of the world. 



We have thus considered the ordinary, or at least the 

 most usual, mode by which the queen ant is sent out 

 qualified for her duty of founding a new family. Dis- 

 persed in the marriage flight, and thereafter borne by 

 personal impulse and the force o^ the wind, she makes 

 a suitabb lodgement and begins at once to prepare her 

 initial nest. But in some cases the conditions of dis- 

 persal are different. The outpouring of numerous 



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