PLAY 35 



ALBERT. You wouldn't be likely to find any other ant 

 at such a place when it is so hot. 



FLORENCE. They hunt for plant secretions and for 

 dead insects as far as a hundred and twenty-five feet from 

 home. A week after I gave them a large sow bug the skele- 

 ton lay in the rubbish heap. 



CECIL. I dropped a half-inch beetle at the door. A 

 worker gave it a shot and paralyzed it. I then laid the 

 bug on the window sill, and it didn't come to for five hours. 



KENNETH. These ants don't often bring any seeds 

 home, but once in a while they carry star thistle into the 

 nest. 



CECIL. I now remember that a hundred or more 

 honey ants like to loaf around on their yard after a shower, 

 while it is still drizzling. The kings and queens often do 

 the same. Their queens are quite large. 



KENNETH. In continuous light rains these ants walk 

 over their yard all night. But at such times they are very 

 sluggish. You can easily pick them up without seeming to 

 disturb them. They are not sensitive to danger don't 

 seem to know it when you pick up their queens at such 

 times. 



ALBERT. How different they then act from what they 

 do when at work at their usual time for labor through the 

 hottest part of the day. I've never seen it too hot for them 

 to forage. The hotter it is the faster they go and the more 

 sensitive they are. 



Play. 



KENNETH. Do ants play? 



ANT. They are not supposed to know enough to do 

 that, 



DOROTHY. Why, I read of queens that played with 

 their servants at times like a cat with her kittens throw- 



