THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE.

Northern Advocate, 6 May 1914, Page 10

THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE.

TRAITS OF ANTS

(By Joseph Showalter.)

Every naturalist who comes to study ants has to admit that they are the most wonderful of all the creatures of the insect world. They exist in more different species, sub-species and varieties than any other insect; they have the largest colonies of v any insect; they can live'in tropic heat or arctic cold; on the. Sigh est mountains or the lowest valleyatf "they make equally their own they make equally their home the,uryest,' desert and the dampest marsh. They outnumber every other kind of t terrestrial animal. Their colonies often outlast a generation of men. , Their qUeens live for thirteen to fifteen years. The "ants refuse to restrict themselves, in any way ?i as a class; they eat almost anything and everything; they long ago 'discoyerietl that paper as a building material is not easily altered or/repaired, and most of them quit using it.

Espinos, the antologist, says that ants owe their superiority to their Sticking; close to earth. "In the ar* 1 there are long flights without obstacles, . "'unstability, wandering about, endless forgetfulness of things and one's self. On the earth, on the contrary, there is not a movement that is not a contact and does not yield pre-cise-information; not a journey that falls to leave some reminiscence; and ■as these journeys are indeterminate, it is inevitable that a portion Of the ground thus travelled should be registered, together with its resources and . dangers, in the animal's imagination."

When bees go to build they have to gather their material at a distance. The ant has its building materials right at hand.

' The ant has fewer enemies than almost any other living creature. Foral observes that man's worst enemies are other men, a,nd that ants' worst enemies' are'other ants. This is true of perhaps no other kind of living thing.

Every naturalist tell you the wonderful'similarity of'ant history to human history. Here are some species which live mainly 8 off of the products of the.chase, just as the American Indians did; they hunt singly and their battles are single combats. Here is another species which have become stock raisers, just.as the early men of Israel were; they have domesticated certain species of plant lice, which serve them as cows. Then here is another class of ants, the harvesters, which resemble the agricultural nations of the'earth.

Petticoat government is supreme in ant colonies. The coloiiies are made up of females. The males have no part whatever in the management of the colonies or their workaday tasks. 3uo for the time he flies away as the escort of the queen on her wedding flight/tho male is "always in the way.."

Ants are indefatigable workers. They kill untold millions of insects every day. Foral estimated that a single large colony will bring in 100,000 dead insects a day. in tropical America'the driver ants, are encouraged to make periodic visits to the houses, because all sorts of vermin, even rats and mice, must get out or be eaten up. In parts of China they use ants, as an aid to orange growing. Worms interfere with the orange crops, so, the orange growers hire the mountaineers to catch ants for them to put., on.the .trees to keep down the worms. Pigs' bladders are baited inside with" 1 lard and placed near the ants' nests. When they are full they are carried to the orange growers and sold. The ants are colonised by depositing them on the topmost branches of the trees. Bamboo poles are used to connect the trees, so that the ants may pass from tree to tree without descending to the ground.

* The commonest of air our ants, to 9 ' little black rascals of garden and field, •hoard the eggs of the corn-root lous3 in their nests over winter, and' the corn begins to grow distribute the jUsf-hatched eggs among the corn--, roots. , The lice repay them by secreting a kind of honey of which the ants are very fond.