24 

 THE WISE ANTS. 



An ant is a tiny, a very tiny creature whose career and 

 that of all his fellows would terminate instantly if the good 

 housewife could have her way. Small as he is, however, 

 if the truth were known I fear we should ha^e to admit 

 that he is the most intelligent, most industrioui, and most 

 determined living thing in proportion to his size. 



The study of ants is not a lofty enterprise for it de- 

 mands that one literally come down to earth on his hands 

 and knees, — "grovel in the dust" as a certain friend of 

 mine would say. Yet I can assure you that an hour can- 

 not be more pleasantly nor more profitably spent than in 

 watching a single one or a colony of these too-often despis- 

 ed insects. I could name a number of savants who would 

 be benefitted immeasurably by such a study. I am quite 

 sure they would change some of their present views in 

 regard to the question of animal instinct and intelligence. 

 It is a very common failing for biologists or 'closet natur- 

 alists' to class as instinctive all acts that they cannot ex- 

 plain; in other words, the term "animal instinct" is too of- 

 ten used to shield ignorance. 



Ants are subject to moods and passions just as we are: 

 They have their deadly wars with foreign nations of other 

 species ; they sometimes, but rarely, have civil wars ; they 

 have hunting expeditions, large parties of them banding 

 together to kill other insects and carry them home for food, 

 — for ant-food consists of both animal and vegetable mat- 

 ter; they also have their regular daily domestic duties 

 such as marketing, house-cleaning, milking the cows, etc. 

 Perhaps it will be well to pause and be a little more explicit 

 about these cows, for that is really what they amount to. 



It was the naturalist Huber who first made the wonder- 

 ful discovery that ants regularly visited certain kinds of 

 plant lice or aphids for the purpose of procuring nectar 

 which they got from two tiny tubes on the backs of the 

 aphids. These plant lice are slow-moving, almost helpless 

 mites. They are very numerous and propagate with ex- 



