MARRIAGE IN MID-AIR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 16

MARRIAGE IN MID-AIR

ANTS ON THEIR HONEYMOON,

It is not in the spring of the year, but at the end of the summer, that the young ant's fancy "lightly turns to thoughts of love." During the last few weeks of late summer thousands upon thousands of ants, clad in their wedding robes—consisting of long, narrow, trailing, milk-white wings, donned specially for the occasion, and discarded immediately on conclusion of the brief honey moon—will mount into the air, there to perform their nuptial rites and to enjoy an exceedingly short period of wedded bliss. The entire marriage ceremony and honeymoon combined occupies only a few hours or less; but even in that brief time, writes Gladys Davidson, F.Z.S., in an English paper, thousands of divorces may take place. For ■ the ascending myriads of insects are a perfect godsend to the hungry swallows, who secure their food while on the wing and who are delighted at the sight of the swarming ants. They have no qualms of conscience, but heartlessly nip many a promising romance in the bud by greedily swallowing a white-trained bride hero and a similarly bedecked bridegroom there.

■ Those aut-honeymoonerg who escape the swallowß - return to earth, where further quick and easy divorce proceedings take place between the newly-mated , couples _ who have not already been separated in the sunny skies above. The unfortunate drone bridegrooms creep away into odd corners and die—for ant colonies do not approve of husbands — and as: soon as the mere males have alighted from their air too bf*af joyflights their life's work is done, and they are expected to "shuffle off this mortal coil" without more ado. The happy brides—who are all Queens or perfect females—on the contrary, are only at the threshold of their wonderful careers, and, though Love's young dream has ended, the - romance of magnificent achievement new begins for them. Each Queen ant begins her life's work by shedding her wedding garment. Ruthlessly she pulls off her trailing opaque white wings, which her practical com-mon-Ben6e—or instinct, as you willtells her would hamper her movements in the energetic job that lies before her. Having no longer a! husband to delight nor any future lovers to attract, why worry; with such frivolous appendages as wings? Off they come, and the shorn Queen at once gets busy with the setting up of her home. No complicated housing scheme* for her; at least, not before the arrival of her' enormous .family; She soon findß some little hollow in the ground,, probably under a convenient stone, and over this she piles up a heaps of dead leaves and other vegetable refuse, arranging her materials in an orderly series of galleries. In the little hollow chamber beneath this apparently chaotic heap of leaves the prudent young Queen lays only a few eggs at first. These quickly hatch out into grubs, which she feeds with predigested food from her own mouth, and tends with, much care. These first grubs soon develop into workers, or imperfect females, who, as soon as their metamorphosis is completed, set to work to carry on the building of the ant-hill and nest. They excavate under-ground galleries and tunnels, and find food for the Queen, who now leaves off her architectural activities and settles down to her sole remaining job or laying millions of eggs for the rest of her days. /Some of the eggs hatch out into more Queene, others into males or drones; but • the large majority of them are workers. lo the latter fall all the . domestic work connected! with \the nest.' They act not only as o builders, but also as nurses to the young grubs, as lady'smaids to the Queens, as fetchers and carriers of food and building materials; and they live lives of unending but interesting toil. Large numbers of the workers are trained as soldiers, who fight pitched . battles with marauding ants from other districts for the protection of their charges and the defence of their citadel. Love enters not into their ken; and, since they are doomed to single blessedness, they never, satisfy their vanity by arraying themselves in elegant wedding garments, but remain wingless all their days.