CHAPTER III 

 INSECT HERDS AND HERDERS 



IT seems an amazing instinct that sends slave-making 

 ants upon predatory raids to recruit the domestic 

 laborers of their commonwealth by mature and larval 

 captives of other species of their own family. But even 

 more surprising is the instinct which leads ants to ap- 

 propriate to their own uses insects of another order and 

 of wholly different habit, and to create for them a nat- 

 ural and wholesome environment. Yet this is what the 

 naturalist finds. 



An ants'-nest is somewhat like certain French villages 

 that serve as social centres and domiciles for the inhabi- 

 tants, from which every morning workers radiate to the 

 surrounding fields, wherein they earn their livelihood, 

 and to which they return at evening. The formicary is 

 the emmet home. The foraging-ground lies outside. 

 Hence ants become great wanderers, and may be seen, 

 often as solitaries, moving about in circuitous and 

 greatly involved paths. In the course of these wander- 

 ings they will be seen climbing trees, shrubs, and bushes. 

 Here is one mounting, let us say, the stem of a rose-bush. 



"Alas!" exclaims some rose-culturing reader, "do I 

 not know that act too well. Have I not often seen 

 those mischievous mites thronging and preying upon 

 my favorite plants?" 



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