Ants 



granaries and are then promptly thrown out by the 

 tenants. True, the ants take the skins from all the seeds 

 before storing and carry the husks outside their nests, but 

 nipping off the growing points never ! 



Another fable of the harvesters is that they cultivate 

 certain plants on the mounds over their nests, for the 

 sake of their seeds. Careful observation has shown that 

 these so-called cultivated plants are simply throw-outs 

 from their nests. As one writer remarked : " To say that 

 the ant, like a provident farmer, sows this cereal and 

 guards and weeds it for the sake of garnering its grain, is 

 as absurd as to say that the family cook is planting and 

 maintaining an orchard when some of the peach stones, 

 which she has carelessly thrown into the backyard with 

 the other kitchen refuse, chance to grow into peach-trees." 



Of the other ants with horticultural proclivities, the 

 most remarkable are those Brazilian species which build 

 " ant gardens." These gardens are composed of particles 

 of earth, carried into trees by the ants and built up 

 into spherical masses bearing a close resemblance to bath 

 sponges. According to the naturalist who discovered them, 

 the seeds of certain plants are carried up the trees by the 

 insects and planted in the masses of earth, in order that 

 their roots may bind the soil particles more firmly 

 together. 



The relations of ants to plants are many and varied, and 

 form a special study in themselves. Certain ants dwell in 

 the thorns of acacia-trees and sally forth to protect their 

 living home from the ravages of leaf-cutting ants when 

 these destructive insects threaten an attack. Another 

 species of ant dwells in a large gall, with a single opening, 

 which is plugged, day in day out, with a living stopper, and 

 in this manner. Some of the workers of this species are 

 known as soldiers and, as always happens among soldier 

 ants, are possessed of very large heads and powerful jaws. 

 The galls in which the ants take up their abode resemble 

 large, hollow oranges. Entrance to and exit from the 



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