27 



a colony is disturbed, trying to find places of safety for 

 them. 



The load that an ant can carry is astonishing and it is 

 amusing to see how they will overcome almost insurmount- 

 able obstacles and arrive safely home with the burden. 

 Just imagine a man weighing one hundred and fifty pounds 

 trying to climb eight foot fences and walls, while carrying 

 as a burden a box three by three by eight feet weighing 

 perhaps two hundred pounds and the comparison will just 

 about balance the work that ants are constantly doing. 



The ant family is a very extensive one, comprising over 

 four thousand species, and inhabits every temperate and 

 torrid part of the globe. They live in all sorts of houses, — 

 large mounds, subterannean earthy cells, hollows bored in 

 decayed wood, etc. Some species live almost exclusively 

 in or about houses, these of course being the ones that 

 bring down the wrath of good housekeepers upon all ant 

 heads. 



As we have seen, ants are fond of sweet substances, a 

 fact which draws them to the nectar which most flowers 

 off'er as a lure to attract insects useful to them. Ants, with 

 their small shining bodies, are of no use for transferring 

 pollen from flower to flower and their pilfering often 

 cheats the flower of its chance of receiving a visit from bee 

 or moth that would prove useful to it. Many plants have 

 apparently grown defenses to avoid visits by crawling in- 

 sects; these barriers usually take the forms of hairy or 

 sticky stems or tufts of hair in the throats of the flow- 

 ers. Everyone knows that a sticky surface off'ers an un- 

 passable obstruction for all crawling insects. If anyone 

 doubts that the tufts of tiny hairs in the throats of flowers 

 or on the stem would bar out an ant, let him just reflect 

 for a moment; remember that those same hairs represent 

 to the ant what a very broad hedge of very closely set, very 

 tall telegraph poles would to a man. 



Every animate or inanimate thing in Nature has its ene- 

 mies and ants are no exception. Predatory insects, ani- 

 mals, birds, plants, the hand or foot of man, disease and 



