XXVI INSECT A : HYMENOPTERA 421 



directions; this is very marked in the harvesting ants of 



Texas which have been described by McCook. No harvesting 



ant is known in Britain, though the little black garden ant 



(Lasius niger) has been noticed occasionally carrying violet 



seeds into its nest. 



A 4. T. i.4.7 Some of these harvesting ants are very pug- 



Ant Battles. . J • T J i 1 J ii: ; 



nacious, and are inclined to plunder one another s 



granaries. Moggridge describes a warfare which continued 

 for several weeks between two nests of Atta barbara, the 

 stronger constantly robbing the other of its store of seeds. 

 The rightful owners would stop the robbers as they made 

 off with their plunder and a fierce fight would ensue, 

 in which even the loss of half its body did not daunt a 

 fighter, though the seizure of an antenna seemed always to 

 result in immediate surrender. 



Honey- -^ ^^^ more curious instinct than that of harvest- 



storing ing, is seen in those colonies in which specialised 

 Ants. individuals store up nectar and honey-dew in their 

 own enormously enlarged crops for the use of the others. 

 This habit is most developed in the Honey Ants of the " Garden 

 of the Gods " in Colorado which have been fully described by 

 McCook, but a similar habit has been observed in ants of the 

 dry plains of South Africa and Australia, where food may be 

 very plentiful for a short time and then become very scarce. 



Amongst these Honey Ants, some of the workers spend 

 their whole lives hanging from the roughened ceilings of special 

 store-rooms (Fig. 316), being fed by the others when they come 

 in bringing them supplies of honey-dew, until their gasters 

 are almost globular ; then in times when food is scarce the 

 workers come to them and are fed from their abundant store. 

 Fig. 317 shows one such "honey-pot" ant feeding a large 

 ordinary worker of the same species, two smaller workers 

 waiting their turns, one on either side. 



The " honey " is obtained in these cases, not from Aphides, 

 but from the sweet juices exuded from certain galls found 

 plentifully on small oaks in the neighbourhood of the nest. 

 Driver or Driver Ants are very common and very con- 

 Hunting spicuous in the Tropics. One West African species 

 Ants. (^Dorylus (Anomma) arcens) described by T. S. 

 Savage ^ forms no nest, but the ants wander from place to 



' Trans, Ent. Soc, Lond., v. pp. 1-15. 



