Ants on Foraging Expeditions.

Evening Star, Issue 7403, 24 December 1887, Page 3

Ants on Foraging Expeditions.

I do not know whether others have studied the way a nest of ants is made aware that at a certain place there is something good to eat. However this may be, the following observation may be of interest to students of ant habits. On one occasion I killed la wasp-?the small yellow waßp that is so common in India. Soon after I observed an ant moving about on the sill of a window. It struck me as a good opportunity to observe what steps this ant would take if brought into contact with the dead wasp. I placed the wasp in the path of the ant, and watched the result. The ant, on finding the wasp, climbed over it and explored it thoroughly in all directions. Having satisfied itself that this was a good find, it descended, and ran down the wall of tho window and across a very rough grass mat made of the aaccharum moonja (the moonj or surput matting of India). It galloped across the room over this rough surface as hard as it could go in a particular direction, and disappeared under the wooden sill of a door. I still watched to see what would happen. Presently a long string of ants in single tile came out and followed the exact course that the foraging ant had taken. They crossed the mat in the same course and went up the wall straight to the wasp. I left them in peace, and some time after I found only the shell of the wasp ; they had eaten up all its interior, and returned homo. It is evident that single ants leave the nest as scouts or explorers on foraging expeditions, and go to long distances. By some scent, left on their course, they are able to retrace their steps to their nest. The ants in the nest, probably by somo scent of the body found, which the exploring ant brings with it, are made to understand that something good to eat has been found. Guided by the exploring ant, or by the scent it may have left in its track, the whole nest, or a portion of it, sallies out, and goes straight to the find. If the body found is easily dragged home, the column doeß bo, in procession, somo preceding, some dragging, and some following the treasure; otherwise, they set to and eat up what portions they can of the thing found. This trait in ants is most interesting. Solitary ants are seen in all directions exploring and careering up and down the stems and leaves of plants. If they come across a flower with ito nectar approachable, that flower quickly becomes crowded with other ants. Their feeling organs appear to be their antennae. As they move about and exploro, their antenna; are always very active, and projected before thctn. They stop here and stop there, and move these sensitive organs as if their whole attention were directed to the impressions received by them, and it appears they decide what course to take, according to the impressions conducted by- their antennae. When two ants of the same kind going in opposite directions meot, they never "cut" each other and pass on, but invariably stop and have a chat, so to speak, and communicate to each other the news. How they do this exactly I cannot tell, nor can I tell exactly how light communicates to our own brain the presence of objects outside of us, and at a distance from us.—E. Bonavia, M.D.