THE ACROBAT 65 



of a weed. An ant climbed up and got it. Next, the ants 

 searched in the tops of other weeds. 



CECIL. It looks like ants can learn. 



DOROTHY. When one of your workers got crushed on 

 the trail today, all passing ants stopped six to twelve 

 inches before reaching the injured one, circled half around 

 it, held on to their seeds, and went on their way home. 



ANT. The gas given off was a danger signal. 



KENNETH. One of our ants tried to carry a wounded 

 visitor (Acrobat) away from the door, but soon dropped it 

 and had a fit. Acid, I suppose. 



ALBERT. I saw an ant rear up like a rabbit as if listen- 

 ing for something or smelling for something. 



KENNETH. I gave the Carpenter a fly a foot from 

 home. Owing to the smell of the fly or for some other 

 reason, she lost the trail and had to climb to the top of a 

 weed three times before she got a whiff of her nest odor. 

 Then she took the fly straight home. I suppose it was for 

 the babies. 



DOROTHY. The ant could smell the nest odor but not 

 the trail odor, eh? But maybe there was no trail odor, as 

 there was no trail. 



KENNETH. Possibly. 



DOROTHY. The daddy-longlegs seems to be paralyzed 

 as soon as you get hold of it. 



ANT. It is. Did you ever notice how close to the 

 ground it carries its body? Did you ever see it spring onto 

 another animal? Daddy isn't as helpless as he looks on 

 his stilts or he wouldn't now be on earth. He would be 

 easy enough to kill if we could only reach him and if he 

 didn't have such a bad odor when attacked. 



CECIL. Besides acids, some ants have oil bags, too. The 

 oil is used to make the sting work easy. Or it might be 



