ANT 





ANTANANARIVO 



the next morning. This nest with which you 

 have provided the ants indeed, any ants' nest 

 is called a formicarium, or formicary, from 

 the Latin word formica, meaning ant. It still 

 differs in one important particular from a true 

 ants' nest, for that, being underground, is in 



darkness; and total darkness is \ 

 grateful to ants. Wrap a dark cloth, therefore, 

 around your tumbler, and remove it only when 

 you wish to make your observations. There 

 is one curious fact about ants' sensitiveness to 

 lijiht it disappears in the case of red light, 

 to which they seem almost totally blind. If, 

 therefore, you can take your formicary for 

 study into a room with a red light, you will 

 disturb the little inhabitants far less than if 

 you subject them to untempered sunlight. 



Probably, in taking up the material for your 

 formicary, you have included no food, so it 

 will be necessary for you to "board" your 

 visitors as well as house them. Bread crumbs, 

 broken rice, a little honey or sugar or a 

 crumbled nut meat or two will prove quite 

 satisfactory to them. Something else, also, 

 you may provide them with something which 

 the old-time observer with his over-interpreta- 

 tion of facts called cemeteries. An ant com- 

 munity is kept strictly sanitary, and no refuse 

 of any sort is allowed to accumulate in the 

 chambers or galleries. Thus the bodies of dead 

 ants are carried out immediately, and if you 

 will place on the nest a paper box about an 

 inch square and a quarter of an inch in height 

 you will find that it will probably be made use 

 of as a repository for the dead. 



Watching closely, you may see the worker 

 ants reconstructing the nest which has been 

 disturbed in process of transference to tin 

 glass. Win. ling avenues and spreading cham- 

 bers will appear, and you may know tint the 

 of the soil which you cannot see is tun- 

 neled in the same manner. You may occasion- 

 ally see, too, the larvae and pupae brought up 

 he air and warmth; and n" you have been 

 fortunate enough to take up with the n< M all 

 tin to kinds of ants, you may disco \< r with 

 your magnifying glass the winged males and. 

 iles. No matter how long ami how care- 

 fully you watch, however, you will never ne 

 an ant with wings doing any sort of \\ 



Beneficial or Harmful? Nobody doubts that 

 liworms n-ally do good by stirring up the 

 surface soil, but seldom are the ants K 



lit for any such helpfulness. They are, 



howi \. r, valuable in much the same way, and 



v are useful also in hastening the decompo- 



sition of organic matter. One large colony it 

 was estimated, brought into the nest daily 

 about 100,000 dead insects. But not all ants 

 do more good than harm. Many a garden spot 

 has been rendered unattractive by their nests; 

 many a house has suffered real damage from 

 their gnawing. Perhaps the most troublesome 

 habit of the ants, however, is that of pasturing 

 plant-sucking insects. The common black ant 

 ry fond of the fluid secreted by the corn- 

 root louse, and does not trust to chance to find 

 it. Collecting all the eggs it can, it bears them 

 to its nest, and there cares for them during 

 the winter and until the young hatch out in 

 the spring. These young lice it carefully places 

 on the roots of the corn, where they may do 

 great harm to the farmer's prospects. 



Further Interesting Facts. One of the most 

 curious things to be observed in connection 

 with some species of ants is their habit of 

 keeping slaves. From some nest not far from 

 their own they capture eggs, larvae and pupae, 

 which they care for until these have developed 

 into full-grown ants. Then the "nurses" cease 

 their labors, and the "foreign" ants are com- 

 pelled to do all the work. But it is the slave- 

 holders and not the slaves who suffer from this 

 custom, for the lazy captors lose in time all 

 capacity for work and become degenerate. . 



Much has been told about the wonderful 

 customs of the driver ants those "Huns and 

 Tartars of the insect world" which do not hesi- 

 tate to prey on animals thousands of times 

 larger than they are. Sometimes, in the trop- 

 or subtropical regions in which they live, 

 they invade a house, and promptly all vermin 

 take leave. Bugs, mice, even the largest and 

 fiercest rats, dare not enter into contest with 

 them, and thus far the householder is the 

 gainer. But the cure speedily proves worse 

 than the disease, for the ants infest everything 

 Beds may be placed with their legs in pans of 

 water, but the 1 it tic pests drop down from tin 

 crilmg. It is these driver ants which form the 

 living bridges so often referred to, clinging to 

 each other with feet and mandibles until t 

 is a chain long enough to reach from one side 

 to the other of a stream. V.L.K. 



This article ha* bo< : to tom-h >n 



the outMtandlntc point* in thin fiiHchmtlnK 



The reader who la mifflriently int-roted 

 i.Klre further Information will find \V. M. 

 Wheeler's book on Ants most helpful. 



ANTANANARIVO, antananari'ro, the 

 r form 01 NARIVO (whirl, 



we), 



