BOYS, OWN COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS , OWN COLUMN.

. THE ANT AS A FIREMAN. A PEST THAT EARNS PRAISE. Dear Boys,— In these days when the ant seems to be invading our houses we are apt to look upon it entirely in the light of a pest, and a great pest at that. True as this may be, it must be realised that the ant is one of Nature's most remarkably clever insects. One observer, Madame Marguerite Combes., has reported behaviour of ants very difficult to explain without v assuming intelligence, or even unselfish devotion. A biologist had told her that when lighted cigarette ends were thrown on the nest of certain ants belonging to the species Formica rufa, the ants promptly proceeded to extinguish the flames as if they perceived the danger, of a fire, and Madame Combes undertook to investigate the remark* able phenomenon. She went by night and put a lighted.wax taper on the nest, and the pine needles flared up in the darkness. The ants did not run away; on the contrary they attacked the burning taper. Some of them seized it and tried to drag it away, while others squirted upon the flames jets of formic acid, which is their natural method of attack. So energetically did the ants "play the hose" that the sound could be heard as a sort of crinkling noise, but still the wax burned. Thereupon the ants formed a circle round the flame and approached nearer and nearer. Finally one went right up to the flame so that it could squirt its - acid into the centre of it, and was burned to death. Another and another followed, squirted and died. And in the end, after many ants had gone like a Curtius to 1 death, the flame was \ /<s\ quite extinguished and the taper > -^\r _^^-"*"'" J ' dragged away. fl/1/ j&^£iP^^^ So pest and, all as they axe to Nj7 the householder, we must acknowledge *^*^* < their undoubted cleverness. *»*^*^