234 00 TO tup: ant 



converting liimsclf into a living' honey -jar, from which all 

 the other ants in liis own nest may help themselves freely 

 from time to time, as occasion demands. The tribe to 

 wliicli lio belonfj's lives under<,'round, in a dome-roofed 

 vault, and only one particular caste among the workers, 

 known as rotunds from their expansive girth, is told off 

 for this special duty of storing hoiu^y within their own 

 bodies. Clinging to tlie top of their nest, with their round, 

 transparent abdomens hanging down loosely, mere globules 

 of skin enclosing the pale amber-coloured honey, these 

 Daniel Land)erts of the insect race look for all the world 

 like clusters of the little American Delaw'aro grapes, with 

 an ant's legs and liead stuck awkwardly on to the end 

 instead of a stulk. Tlu'y have, in fact, realised in every- 

 day life the awful fate of Mr. Gilbert's discontented sugar- 

 broker, who laid on flesh and ' adipose deposit ' until ho 

 became converted at last into a perfect rolling ball of 

 globular humanity. 



The manners of the honoy-ant race are very simple. 

 ]Most of the members of each community are active and 

 roving in their dispositions, and show no tendency to undue 

 distension of the nether extremities. They go out at 

 night and collect nectar or honey-dew froni the gall-insects 

 on oak-trees ; for the gall-insect, like love in tlie old Latin 

 saw, is fruitful both in sweets and hitter's, mdle ctfelle. 

 This nectar they then carry home, and give it to the rotunds 

 or honey-bearers, who swallow it and store it in their round 

 abdomen until they can hold no more, having stretched 

 their skins literally to the very point of bursting. They 

 pass their time, like the Fat Boy in * Pickwic k,' chiiifly in 

 sleeping, but they cling upside down meanwhile to the 

 roof of their residence. When the workers in turn 

 require a meal, they go up to the nearest honey-bearer and 

 stroke her gently with their antennie. The honey-bearer 



