72 A NATURALIST IN HIMALAYA 



and the presence of food in its jaws had no effect on 

 the awaiting throng. It seemed to possess no power 

 of calling out the swarm or of giving information of 

 its valuable discovery. 



But the division of labour in this community is 

 brought to a still higher degree of perfection, for not 

 only is the labour distinctly divided between the larger 

 and smaller workers, but also different tasks are 

 assigned to different groups of the smaller workers. I 

 draw this conclusion from the following observation. 

 When a nest has been fully excavated and the duty 

 of the whole community is to collect food, then every 

 ant appears to render aid when the call arrives. But 

 one evening I discovered a nest which was still under- 

 going excavation. Certain of the ants were carrying 

 out their little loads, while others were running about 

 outside the nest. I gave a dead grasshopper to one 

 of the workers and expected that, on arrival of the 

 news of the discovery, the work of excavation would 

 cease and all the ants would hasten to the spot. But 

 this was not the case. The swarm emerged and 

 attacked the grasshopper, but the workers engaged in 

 excavation took no notice of this rich discovery, but 

 continued their monotonous toil. The swarm dragged 

 the grasshopper to the nest, but the insect was too 

 large to enter the aperture and remained fixed, half in 

 and half outside the nest. Round about the gate was 

 this seething swarm of ravenous workers, all tearing 

 and dragging at the insect in their excited efforts to 

 draw it past the obstacle, but still the workers engaged 

 in excavation took no notice. At every exit each 

 little excavator had to force its way through the 

 greedy throng and sometimes had even to climb 



