NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



upon the rubbish-heap beneath. It seemed a waste of 

 energy in pursuit of a vain imagination. Yet how 

 should a human ignoramus hke the observer decide 

 that point? 



I once carefully studied a large colony of carpenter 

 ants that for several years had lived and wrought within 

 the heavy corner beam of a flour-mill on the Bell estate 

 at Bellwood, Pennsylvania. One gang dropped the 

 pellets from a crack in the twelve-inch beam which 

 opened into the nest. These fell upon a cross-beam, 

 eighteen inches beneath, where another group of workers 

 gathered them up and dropped them upon the stairway 

 that led from the lower story, the nest being situatctl 

 above the second floor. 



The miller, who had been about the premises for 

 several years, said that when he first came the ants 

 had a third gang detailed upon the stairway, several 

 feet below, who cleared off the dumpage and dropped it 

 to the floor. But as he swept the stairs daily, the 

 emmets discovered that their detail for duty in that 

 quarter was not needed, and withdrew it! Thereafter 

 work went on as I saw it — the chippings cast from the 

 cross-beam to the stairs were left to the manipulations 

 of the miller's broom. 



I have frequently found carpenter ants lodged in the 

 shade-trees along city streets and squares, and there 

 they have the same habit of secretiveness — or is it 

 cleanliness? — practised by their country congeners. 

 Near my home stood a maple much the worse for wear 

 and tear, although not old. On one side, a few inches 

 from the roots, was a small tubular opening hitlden 

 behind a bulging scale of bark. Out of this ants were 

 dropping cuttings which formed a little heap upon the 



116 



