HONEY ANTS 



our proverb "as bitter as gall" must needs be modified; 

 and for them also the well of Mara became a fomit of 

 sweetness. 



Some gall-bearing twigs were put into the artificial 

 nests. They received no attention. This led to more 

 careful selection, and twigs having bleeding galls were 

 introduced. These were instantly attacked and cleaned 

 of their beaded sweets. Examination explained this 

 difference in behavior. The favored galls were livid 

 and greenish in color and soft in texture. They con- 

 tained the immature forms of a gall-fly, Cynips quercus- 

 mellaria. The neglected galls were all hard and of a 

 darker color, with a circular hole near the base through 

 which the mature gall-fly had escaped. The galls were 

 all small, the largest being three-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter. Thus our honey ants were shown to be 

 garnering the nectar of galls whose flow was probably 

 stimulated by the trituration of gall-fly larva?. 



The ant-honey stored within the rotunds has an 

 aromatic flavor suggestive of bee-honey, and is agree- 

 able to the taste. An analysis, made by a competent 

 chemist, of the product of the Mexican species showed 

 a nearly pure solution of sugar of fruits differing from 

 grape-sugar in not crystallizing. The Mexicans and 

 Indians have, or had at the period of these studies, sev- 

 eral uses for the ant-honey. They ate it freely. The 

 late Professor Cope, when in New Mexico, had a plate 

 of rotunds offered him as a dainty relish. Dr. Loew 

 reported that the Mexicans press the insects and use 

 the honey at their meals. They were also said to pre- 

 pare from it by fermentation an alcoholic drink. An- 

 other naturalist learned that the natives apply it to 

 bruised and swollen limbs. 



103 



