54 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



at a distance from their nests, we were sure to be 

 overrun and severely punished ; for the moment 

 an Ant touched the flesh, he secured himself with 

 his jaws, doubled in his tail, and stung with all 

 his might. When we were seated on chairs in 

 the evening in front of the house to enjoy a chat 

 with our neighbours, we had stools to support 

 our feet, the legs of which, as well as those of the 

 chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The 

 cords of the hammocks are obliged to be smeared 

 in the same way to prevent the Ants from paying 

 sleepers a visit." 



The Honey Ants of Mexico and Australia 

 have gained their popular name partly from the 

 habit of collecting honey, and partly from their 

 extraordinary method of storing it, utilizing 

 certain members of the colony as receptacles. 

 While the workers who are engaged in the 

 ordinary duties of keeping the nest in order, 

 tending the young, and collecting food supplies 

 are quite normal, those which act as living 

 receptacles present a most extraordinary appear- 

 ance, their abdomens being swollen out into 

 polished membranous spheres ; in fact, they have 

 become living honey-pots. The normal workers 

 go forth and, in the case of the Mexican species, 

 collect a sweet secretion which exudes from 

 certain plant-galls, and hurrying home forcibly 

 inject the honey down the throats of the rotund 

 workers until they become fully distended. The 

 honey undergoes in the bodies of these globular 

 workers some slight chemical change, and is then 

 yielded up and drawn forth by the normal 

 workers to feed the young brood. Should one of 



