ii 4 INSECT BEHAVIOR 



perform one of their most interesting habits. The first frosty wind 

 that suggests the coming of winter, sends the ants scurrying to their 

 respective herds. The tiny cattle are tenderly gathered up and born 

 away uninjured to the ants' subterranean nests. Here they are placed 

 upon exposed roots below the frost line, that the ant colony may enjoy 

 a fresh supply of honey throughout the winter, when for the most 

 part, the insect world is cold and dead. 



Even more wonderful is the fact that ants have been observed to 

 gather the eggs of aphids in the fall, carry them into their nests for the 

 winter and in the following spring, place the young cattle which 

 emerge from them upon their natural food plants. Here they were 

 allowed to remain during the summer in exchange for the honey-sap 

 which they extracted from the plants. 



Among such masses of insects as people the ant world, one naturally 

 finds a series of happenings, quite similar to the events in the world 

 as we know it. Where great numbers of creatures are found living 

 together, no matter what they are, or how low they may be in the scale 

 of life, there are sure to be disagreements between certain members 

 of the race. How these troubles originate is not for me to say, but it 

 is true in the ant world, as in ours, that great upheavals often occur, 

 usually between colonies of the same species. Starting perhaps 

 between two or three individuals, these disagreements often end in 

 general warfare between the two factions. 



These ant struggles are true wars, where only death can decide the 

 issue, for they fight hand to hand, or better, jaw to jaw, until one has 

 destroyed the other. The battle is composed of hundreds of warriors, 

 each fighting loyally and frantically until its last spark of life is 

 extinguished. 



Few people have been fortunate enough to witness one of these 

 wars, yet by a strange turn of fate, the author came abruptly upon the 

 tail end of a furious battle which had probably been going on during 



