522 



THE NATURE BOOK 



we are sure to discover colonies of Ants. 

 It the day is sunny a mass of small 

 cream-coloured objects \\-ill be disclosed 

 to view when the warm stone is lifted 



and pupae without 



so-called " ant-eggs 



fish and pheasants. 



The industry of 



them ; these are our 

 ' — very good for gold- 



a w a y. 

 amazing 

 t i o n ! 

 noise, if 



W h a t 

 commo- 

 \Miat a 

 our hear- 

 ing were only keen 

 enough to detect 

 the soundsl 

 Dozens of excited 

 little Ants running 

 hard to and fro 

 among the cream- 

 coloured objects, 

 each seizing one 

 and SNviftly carry- 

 ing it off, or drag- 

 ging and tugging 

 it b a'c k w a r d s ; 

 scurrying through 

 the holes into the 

 of the formicary, 





mt 



FOUR WORKER ANTS AND A WINGED MALE 

 TWO NAKED PUP^. A COCOON, AND A LARVA 

 (Natural size.) 



the workers is re- 

 markable. They 

 work all day and 

 occasionally a 1 1 

 night ; only stop- 

 ping at intervals to 

 adjust their toilet 

 or to touch each 

 other with their 

 tiny feelers — a few 

 words of friendly 

 communication, no 

 doubt. 



The winged 

 forms, which we 

 sometimes see 

 among the workers, 

 are either males or 

 females, or both, 

 a brief nuptial flight the males soon 

 and he females, having removed 

 own wings, settle down to domes- 

 in darkness. 



Phny said of the ant, " i)i formica 

 non modo sensus, sed etiam mens, ratio, 

 mcnioria," and observation demonstrates 

 the truth of this. Ants certainly seem 

 to have special faculties for doing the 



underground passages Alter 



to dump down their d e ; 

 burdens in safety in the nursery chambers, their 

 and then to hurry back again. ticity 



These bustling little bodies are the 

 nurses. Ants destined never to become 

 queens, workers who begin their useful 

 lives by tending the sleeping babies, as 

 children do dolls, until such time as 

 strength and maturity bring duties more 

 onerous. And while we watch them, 

 within a few moments not a single cream- 

 coloured object remains. Picking up some certain Aphides (Green Fly) 

 we notice three distinct kinds : one like building shelters for them. 

 a conical maggot, which in truth it is, 

 a little larva newly hatched from the egg. 

 -Another is exactly an Ant, so neatly folded 

 up : that is a pupa, and these are most 

 numerous. And the third, not an egg, 

 but a silken cocoon, with a pupa or baby 



Ant inside. 



most extraordinary things. They con- 

 struct subterranean galleries, they make 

 roads, and thov raid for slaves. They use 



as " cows," 

 They keep 

 pets and " paying guests," and even 

 tolerate such parasitic lodgers as the 

 unin\'ited " slater," who originally rolled 

 in and declined to crawl out. In all 

 Natural History there is no more fas- 

 cinating study than the ways and doings 

 Larvae, pupae within cocoons, of the industrious and self-sacrificing Ant. 



R. A. Staig. 



.i>Vl 



