THE MYRMIDONS 161 



are for the most part going to and from distant 

 trees. Some bring down small caterpillars or 

 flies, others have merely collected honey or honey- 

 dew from the aphides up there. Mr. Edward 

 Step says that the honey carriers coming down 

 can be distinguished from the honey fetchers 

 going up by their greater portliness. Possibly it 

 is so, though the ant that is merely carrying 

 honey for the community necessarily has it in 

 the crop, which I should have thought would show 

 no outward extension. 



Caterpillars are so seldom seen being carried 

 down the trunk of a tree, and some of them would 

 be so difficult to manipulate in that position, that 

 I think a good many must be thrown down on the 

 chance of a ground forager picking them up. It 

 would be interesting to climb a tree and spend 

 an afternoon there seeing all that happened. 



And here is the nest. I knew it in February 

 when all the sticks of last year had vanished, and 

 there was no more than a slight elevation of earth 

 like a trampled mole hill. From the centre of 

 this there oozed on a sunny day a kind of brownish 

 trickle of ants not unlike an ooze of golden syrup, 

 the parts of which shone like drops of bare honey, 

 though it was but the transparence of young ant 

 carapace. Only two score they seemed, and 

 their whole sphere of influence was not a square 

 foot above ground, for they just sprawled and 

 basked for the two hours that the sun was hot, 

 and then returned to their gloomy cellars. 



