GO TO THE ANT 235 



thereupon throws up her head and regurgitates a large drop 

 of the amber liquid. ( ' Regurgitates ' is a good word which 

 I borrow from Dr. McCook, of Philadelphia, the great 

 authority upon honey-ants ; and it saves an immense deal 

 of trouble in looking about for a respectable periphrasis.) 

 The workers feed upon the drops thus exuded, two or three 

 at once often standing around the living honey -jar, and 

 lapping nectar together from the lips of their devoted 

 comrade. This may seem at first sight rather an unpleasant 

 practice on the part of the ants ; but after all, how does it 

 really differ from our own habit of eating honey which has 

 been treated in very much the same unsophisticated 

 manner by the domestic bee ? 



Worse things than these, however, Dr. McCook records to 

 the discredit of the Colorado honey-ant. When he was open- 

 ing some nests in the Garden of the Gods, he happened acci- 

 dentally to knock down some of the rotunds, which straight- 

 way burst asunder in the middle, and scattered their store 

 of honey on the floor of the nest. At once the other ants, 

 tempted away from their instinctive task of carrying off the 

 cocoons and young grubs, clustered around their unfortunate 

 companion, like street boys around a broken molasses barrel, 

 and, instead of forming themselves forthwith into a volunteer 

 ambulance company, proceeded immediately to lap up the 

 honey from their dying brother. On the other hand it must 

 be said, to the credit of the race, that (unlike the members 

 of Arctic expeditions) they never desecrate the remains of 

 the dead. When a honey-bearer dies at his post, a victim 

 to his zeal for the common good, the workers carefully 

 remove his cold corpse from the roof where it still clings, 

 clip off the head and shoulders from the distended abdomen, 

 and convey their deceased brother piecemeal, in two detach- 

 ments, to the formican cemetery, undisturbed. If they 

 chose, they might only bury the front half of their late rela- 



