246 GO TO THE ANT 



domesticated animals. Man has, at most, some twenty or 

 thirty such, including cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, camels, 

 llamas, alpacas, reindeer, dogs, cats, canaries, pigs, fowl, 

 ducks, geese, turkeys, and silkworms. But ants have hun- 

 dreds and hundreds, some of them kept obviously for pur- 

 poses of food ; others apparently as pets ; and yet others 

 again, as has been plausibly suggested, by reason of super- 

 stition or as objects of worship. There is a curious blind 

 beetlewhich inhabits ants' nests, and is so absolutely depen- 

 dent upon its hosts for support that it has even lost the 

 power of feeding itself. It never quits the nest, but the ants 

 bring it in food and supply it by putting the nourishment 

 actually into its mouth. But the beetle, in return, seems 

 to secrete a sweet liquid (or it may even be a stimulant 

 like beer, or a narcotic like tobacco) in a tuft of hairs near 

 the bottom of the hard wing-cases, and the ants often lick 

 this tuft with every appearance of satisfaction and enjoy- 

 ment. In this case, and in many others, there can be no 

 doubt that the insects are kept for the sake of food or some 

 other advantage yielded by them. 



But there are other instances of insects which haunt 

 ants' nests, which it is far harder to account for on any hypo- 

 thesis save that of superstitious veneration. There is a 

 little weevil that runs about by hundreds in the galleries 

 of English ants, in and out among the free citizens, making 

 itself quite at home in their streets and public places, but 

 as little noticed by the ants themselves as dogs are in our 

 own cities. Then, again, there is a white woodlouse, some- 

 thing like the common little armadillo, but blind from having 

 lived so long underground, which walks up and down the 

 lanes and alleys of antdom, without ever holding any com- 

 munication of any sort with its hosts and neighbours. In 

 neither case has Sir John Lubbock ever seen an ant take 

 the slightest notice of the presence of these strange fellow- 



