A PEEP AT ANTDOM.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17384, 21 April 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

A PEEP AT ANTDOM.

SOCIALISM IN EXCELSIS.

(Spectator.)

Dr. H. H. Ewers, a German author, has written an absorbing book entitled "The Ant People," in which he imparts much information regarding these marvellous insects. The author observes the ant is neither good to cat, nor beautiful to look at, nor even funny or useful—"for these reasons, man has taken little notice of ants, a condition that satisfies them very well," since the interest of humanity in the creatures which it assumes to be made for its convenience is rarely pleasant for its object. Yet here arc whole worlds of feminists, heroes, architects, slave-owners, parasites, conquerors, living out their social experiments on a scale in which we can study their results as a whole, with the same kind of comprehension (neither more nor less) that some colossal god might bring to our affairs if they came under his observation. From hunters to shepherds, to agriculturists, we may trace the

Evolution of the Ants. Among them we may still find primitive and warlike races, like the bulldog ants of Australia, which are an inch in length and can jump up as high as a man's knee to sting him; pastoral peoples, who keep leaf-lice and other animals, milking them regularly; tillers of the soil and harvesters; and ants that ply the shuttle and distaff. "Only among men and ants," says the author, "do we find a complete series of artistic powers. In Antdom we have spinners, carpenters, paper-makers, roofers, hunters, farmers, bakers, miners, herds, coopers, plasterers, mushroom growers, tapestry makers, gardeners, cutlers, nurses, governesses, sick-nurses, soldiers, scouts, guards; there are professional slave-holders, thieves, robbers, loafers. Of course mankind has some others, but among the<ants there are callings not known to man; for instance, the profession of the Living Door among the carpenter ants, or the Living Cask among the honey ants, both quite as strange to man as the compulsory regicide. The honey ants, who live in countries where droughts are frequent, have followed a great social rule of antdom that mankind is now adopting (division of labour) to such an extent that one class of worker has specialised on developing her stomach until it has grown so big that she can no longer move. She hangs, then, from the roof of her home, a mere bag of mead, a great communal cropstomach, whose other organs have atrophied from disuse, until death releases her from her martyrdom and she falls to the floor. From earliest infancy she has been chosen for the sacrifice, she is flattened like a Moorish bride until the hour comes for her dedication, and is then led to the honey cellar and becomes a living cask. From lime lo lime she lets a few drops pass from her public to her private stomach, but only just enough to keep her alive. She has no business but a continuous clinging lo the roof with her feet. which have by now become hooks, to carry the great weight of her casks. She clings thus, in order to ensure the scrupulous cleanliness that all ants insist upon. If the barrels rested on the ground, the cellarers would find difficulty in sweeping. As it, is they are groomed daily. When an ant wants to feed, it goes down to the cellar and opens the mouth of the first cask it comes to and drinks its fill. Then the spigot closes. During the brief period of filling the process is reversed. The honcy-gathcrcrs bring the sweet liquid home in their crops and., pour it into the willingly opened bung-hole of the living casks. Every ant likes prcdigeslcd food, and, strange as it may seem to us, the custom is to feed on the kisses of one's sister workers.

"The ant gathers considerable food, but needs very little for its own requirements; so little that it is always hungry. Its national consciousness is so strong that it reckons itself in Terms of the Community. Only a portion of the people go in search of food, while the others, with duties highly specialised, attend to the housework. When one of the workers comes home, another ant approaches her, touches her with her feelers, strokes her with her front legs and licks her. They lay tongue to tongue and accompany this friendly intercourse with lender strokes of feelers and legs. The feeder that comes home with a full crop is not content with feeding one, but passes from one to the other, distributing her gifts with a free hand. And even the others, which have been so tenderly fed, do not retain these gifts for themselves alone. They run lo other hungry sisters and pour forth what they can spare in kisses." Here, then, is Socialism in excelsis. We not only mind our sister's but attend to her digestion. 'Humanitarian' work is not neglected, and in eugenics and dietetics Antdom is several thousand years ahead of mankind, for it knows howto breed the type of creature that the Slate requires by a nice regulation of its early diet. "I have often observed wounded or ill ants," says the author, "nursed back to health by their sisters. These ministrations may last for months. It is true that very severely wounded individuals arc seldom nursed; those whose death is imminent arc cast out of the nest. Just so the Spartans exposed their sickly children." More remarkable still, he declares that ants Indulge In Sport and Games. He has seen them play with grains of wheat, or seeds, taking them away from one another, letting them roll, bringing them back. They have boxing and wrestling matches, catching one another with their mandibles, and trying all sorts of grips. "It is easy to see that these contests are not in earnest. There are crowds of onlookers, stroking the contestants with their feelers and forelegs, and trilling as they cheer. These games of strength," lie suggests, are chiefly indulged in by the housemaids of the nest, who find in them a means of getting the sunshine and fresh air denied them in the domestic round. On even'more debatable ground Dr. Ewers does not fear to tread. What is the real purpose of the great assemblages of the ant people? For they do assemble, he declares, both out in the open and in the artificial nest. They gather suddenly —"then sit still and quiet for many hours at a time. They do not talk to one another, they do not touch one another with their feelers. They move the hinder body slightly, as a dog wags his tail: they wave their feelers hither and thither, very slowly. It is very .(Continued in next column).

striking, if you come to thing of it, that there is no animal that works so continuously, with slight intervals for play, as the ant. What then are the workers about now—what is the purpose of their assembly? Arc they consulting about something important to the State? Are they praying, as men do in their churches? Are they thanking their Creator that he made them the crown of the insect world?" Here be thoughts that cannot fail to inculcate that humility before the works of God that the old theolojry so signally failed to supply. Are we the lords of the Universe, or are there other creatures, suffering, striving, sinning and sometimes seeing the Light, for whom there is a redemption and a revelation, differing from ours only in degree?