86 
NATURE NOTES. 
ANTS IN CEYLON. 
far the most interesting of all the insects out here to- 
je me at present are, I think, the ants. I have several 
colonies of ants about the estate in which I take a 
special interest, and always look to see how they are 
getting on when I pass them. Sometimes I come upon a colony 
and find every ant occupied with clearing out the sand that has 
got washed down into their nests. Every ant, as it comes to 
light, will be seen to have a little pellet of earth in its mandibles, 
which it carries up and lays down a little from the mouth of the 
nest, then returning for another and yet another load. Stooping 
down to watch them closely you will perhaps see one with a 
regular boulder, a piece of quartz looking very small to ns, but 
fully as large, or even bigger, than the ant itself, who is tugging 
and straining at it with might and main. Now it will push it up 
with all its might, now it will turn round and begin tugging and 
dragging it backwards ; at last it will have advanced about an 
inch, when it will tread on some newly-deposited earth and down 
wall slide ant and boulder together, and the lost ground will have- 
to be made up as soon as possible. So hard does it work and 
with such zeal, that I was almost going to say it made one 
expect to see it take a handkerchief out of its pocket and mop 
its forehead ! 
The most curious part of it all is, that you will sometimes see 
another ant which has just deposited its burden turn round and 
run home, passing right over its heavily-ladened comrade, just 
as if the latter were not there. Another feature concerning 
these ants is that they seem to have their regular “ beef days,”* 
on which every ant goes out in search of provisions. Here is- 
one noble sportsman returning in triumph with some small 
insect, such as a very small moth or wing of a dead fly ; and 
there you will see a large gang of about fifty coolies (I mean 
ants) all dragging along the body of a large beetle or a worm. 
I once saw two ants both hauling away at the fragment of a 
worm on' the very edge of the crater surrounding the entrance to 
the nest. No. i had found what he considered a very choice 
morsel and was bearing it home in high glee when No. 2, for 
some unaccountable reason, seized hold of it and began pulling 
it in the opposite direction. It may have been under the im- 
pression that No. I was going in the wrong direction, or he may 
have thought that this was not a particularly agreeable joint to- 
dine off, or he may have been an ant from another colony who 
thought the worm a most particularly dainty morsel for a royal 
banquet and much too good for the ants of No. I’s colony. At 
Oil all upcountry esUtes in Ceylon, a coolie is dispatched on one day in the 
week to bring from the butcher a supply of meat for the planter’s bungalow,, 
which is almost always beef. 
