OTO The Great World's Farm 



therefore, unfold for only a short time during the first 

 hours of the morning and close again by 9 a. m.; and in 

 all probabihty there is a close connection between the 

 times when flowers open and close, and the hours when 

 their friends and enemies are abroad. 



Plants such as the teasel keep off the ants by means of 

 the basins formed by their leaves, which catch the dew as 

 it trickles down their stems, and keep it so effectually as 

 to be seldom empty while the plant is in blossom. Water 

 is completely bafiling to ants, and if placed on the stem of 

 a plant thus protected, they run helplessly up and down, 

 and then drop to the ground. 



Stickiness, too, of all kinds, is their abhorrence, and 

 is often fatal to them, whether in the form of sticky hairs 

 or sticky juice. The lettuce is one of many plants fur- 

 nished with a milky juice which is especially abundant 

 near the flowers. If an ant crawls up the stem, its hooked 

 feet are so sharp as to cut through the outer skin, and the 

 juice which at once oozes out hardens rapidly, gluing it to 

 the spot, while the little creature's frantic efforts to clean 

 itself only make matters worse, and it seldom succeeds in 

 escaping. 



Many of the plants belonging to the order which con- 

 tains the catch-flies, campions and pinks, are provided 

 with rings of sticky hairs, and as many as sixty-four small 

 insects have been found at once on one flower-stalk of the 

 red German catch-fly. One can imagine how little nectar 

 would have been left to attract profitable insects if these 

 sixty-four had been allowed to have their way. Ants are 

 usually very wary in their manner of proceeding, and feel 

 their way carefully up the stalk until they reach the sticky 

 ring, whereupon they generally turn round and come down 



