Insect Study 



421 



nest and feeding the young, but they are never permitted to go out with 

 war parties; thus they never fight, unless their colony is attacked by 

 marauders. 



If one chances upon an ant battle, one must needs compare it to a 

 battle of men before the invention of gunpowder; for in those days fight- 

 ing was more gory and dreadful than now, since man fought man until 

 one of the twain was slain. There is a great variation in military skill as 

 well as in courage shown by different species of ants; the species most 

 skilled in warfare, march to battle in a solid column and when they meet 

 the enemy, the battle resolves itself into duels, although there is no code 

 of ant honor which declares that one must fight the enemy single-handed. 

 Although some ants are provided with venomous stings, our common 

 species use their jaws for weapons; they also eject upon each other a very 

 acid liquid which we know as formic acid. Two enemies approach each 

 other, rear on their hind legs, throw this ant vitriol at each other, then 

 close in deadly combat, each trying to cut the other in two. Woe to the 

 one on which the jaws of her enemy are once set! For the ant has bull- 

 dog qualities, and if she once gets hold, she never lets go even though she 

 be rent in pieces herself. At night the ant armies retreat to their citadels, 

 but in the morning fare forth again to battle ; and thus the war may be 

 waged for days, and the battlefield be strewn with the remains of the dead 

 and dying. So far as we are able to observe, there are two chief causes 

 for ant wars ; one is when two colonies desire the same ground, and the 

 other is for the purpose of making slaves. 



Perhaps the most interesting as well as most easily observed of all ant 

 practices, are those that have to do with plantdice, or aphids. If we find 

 an ant climbing a plant of any sort, it is very likely that we shall find she 

 is doing it for the purpose of tending her aphid herds. The aphid is a 

 stupid little creature which lives by thrusting its bill or sucking tube into 

 a stem or leaf of a plant, and thus settles down for life, nourished by the 



sap which it sucks up ; 

 it has a peculiar habit 

 of exuding from its 

 alimentary canal 

 drops of honey-dew, 

 when it feels the caress 

 of the ant's antennae 

 upon its back. I had 

 one year under obser- 

 vation, a nest of ele- 

 gant little ants with 

 shining triangular ab- 

 domens which they 

 waved in the air like 

 pennants when excit- 

 ed. These ants were 

 most devoted attend- 

 ants on the plant-lice 

 infesting an evening 

 primrose; if I jarred 

 An aphid stable, built by ants to protect their herds. ^^^ primrose stem, 

 Photo by siingeriand. the ants had a panic. 



