ANT 



271 



ANT 





placed the eggs and the larvae and pupae as 

 they develop. There is a regular scheme of 

 distribution of these, depending apparently on 

 temperature and moisture. The duties of the 

 workers are not finished when they have placed 

 their charges, for the queen and the larvae 

 must be fed, and the young in all stages must 

 be kept strictly clean. Many workers spend 

 most of their time polishing the eggs and the 

 larva, with their tongues, while others take 

 the part of nurse-maids and carry the young 

 about. In the evening, after a hot day, long 

 trains of workers can often be seen, bearing 

 in their mandibles the little white bodies which 

 are usually mistaken for eggs, but which are 

 in reality larvae and pupae. Sometimes these 

 are deposited on the ground and allowed to 

 remain there, but often they are borne to and 

 fro by their careful nurses, like children out 

 for an airing. 



Just here a word of caution is necessary. 

 There is always the danger in studying about 



I OF 'HIE COMMON ANT 



any form <>f animal htV that actions may be 

 i rprctrd; that the enthusiastic ob- 

 may argue that because men when t !> 



act in certain ways are moved by certain feel- 

 ings, like actions in animals are to be ac- 

 counted for by similar impulses. To be sure, 

 the ante show what appears to be the tenderest 

 affection for their charges, but their movements 

 are governed by unreasoning instinct and not 

 by conscious solicitude. Many an observer 

 has been so misled, and has written tales of 

 the joy of ante on meeting after a long separa- 

 tion or of their grief over their dead, and of 

 the elaborate funeral ceremonies tales which 

 seem too good to be untrue, but which never- 

 theless must be cast into the realm of fable. 



Ant Food. As stated above, the earliest ante 

 ate only flesh-food, and there are many species 

 which still hold to this original preference. 

 Young natural ists have a clever way of taking 

 advantage of this fact when they have some 

 small animal, as a mouse or a bird, which 

 they wish reduced to skeleton form. If a popu- 

 lous ant nest be chosen, and the little animal 

 be left close enough so that it cannot be over- 

 looked, it does not take long for the perfectly 

 clean skeleton to appear. Ante will also empty 

 birds' eggs if the shells are not too tough. 



But a great many species of ante have pro- 

 gressed beyond this hunting stage, where the 

 whole business of life is foraging for prey, and 

 are living in what might be called a pastoral 

 or agricultural state. Some of them keep herds 

 of "ant cows'' and "milk" them in most ap- 

 proved fashion "cows" which are nothing 

 more than plant lice, known as aphides, that 

 secrete a sweet juice (see APHIDES). The lice 

 are "pastured" on some plant and the ante 

 stand guard over them, going about from one 

 to another and stroking them with their anten- 

 nae until they yield a clear drop of fluid, which 

 is eagerly swallowed. 



Others collect seed or even grain and store 

 it in their nests, where it is kept scrupulously 

 than. Certain observers, noticing about the 

 nest of seed-eating ante circles of grow- 

 ing pi unts, have declared that the ante actually 

 planted seed and lay in wait for the harvest, 

 but more careful study reveals the fact that 

 the plants have sprung up from seed accounted 

 useless by the ante and cast out of the nest. 

 11 there are the interesting fungus-eating 

 ante, wlndi KG about securing their novel food 

 supply in systematic manner. Each foraging 

 \\orkrr r. -turns t.> the n.-.-t l>.-anng a leaf, which 

 is carried by the stem, with the blade extending 

 over the ant's back. So suggestive is the 

 appearance that these ants are commonly 

 known as umbrella, or parasol, ants, but it is 



