THE MOST GIFTED INSECT EACE. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



FOOD AND FORAGING EXPEDITIONS. 



THE food of ants is extremely varied. Mostly it 

 consists of animal substances. Advantage is taken 

 by zoologists of their fondness of animal food. If they 

 want the skeleton of a mouse, rat, snake, frog, lizard, or 

 small bird, they have nothing to do but put it into a tin 

 box perforated with holes, and place the box near a 

 populous ants' nest. The insects are not long in finding 

 it out, and stream in and out of the holes, carrying 

 fragments of food to their nests. 



In this way they will clean the bones from every 

 particle of flesh, leaving nothing but the sinews by which 

 the bones are attached to each other. Should the skele- 

 ton be that of a bird, the large feathers of the tail and 



