112 ANTS AND CHILDREN OF THE GARDEN 



KENNETH. If a colony couldn't get other food, might 

 they eat their eggs? 



ANT. Yes. If a colony were likely to starve, they 

 would first quit making any large soldier forms. Next, 

 they would quit making kings and queens, too, except one 

 queen. Finally the workers would die of starvation, leav- 

 ing nothing of the colony but one queen. You see, there 

 is a chance yet for the colony to be saved if the queen can 

 get enough food to keep alive. 



FLORENCE. Ants gather nuts a good deal like squir- 

 rels do, don't they? 



ALBERT. Yes. For instance, father saw a bushel of 

 nuts in the stump of a tree that had just been cut down. 

 When the workmen went back after the nuts the next 

 morning they had all been removed. What put them 

 there and what took them away? 



KENNETH. Have you a storage room for your seeds 

 and babies? 



ANT. Some ants have and others scatter them around 

 on the floor anywhere, same as man. Now laugh! I don't 

 mean man scatters his babies around. 



KENNETH. I placed a piece of almond by the door, 

 and about a dozen Acrobats came and dined with ours, 

 although they had no invitation. 



CECIL. At last I thought I was going to see our ants 

 carry the dead body of one of their kind home for food. 

 I uncovered the body in a cloth by the nest. The ants 

 examined it carefully. One of them started indoors with 

 it, but was held up by several others. 



ALBERT. Go on. 



CECIL. After a pulling contest, an ant took the body 

 away from the carrier, walked away five inches, stopped 

 to think, turned and started for the door again, where 



