ants, but only ventures into their nests during the winter, when they are half frozen. In summer it would soon be torn to pieces. As a rule, it lies in wait near the roads frequented by ants and seizes solitary passers-by, tearing open and devouring the abdomen filled with sweet juice. Forel regards all Myrmecophila-of which Taschenberg reckons three hundred species in Germany alone- -as direct or indirect parasites, and as only accidental parts of the economy of the ant polity. He has found a large number of them, especially of species of beetles, in the ants' nests, but could not establish their exact relations with the ants. That these beetles are not always friends of the ants is proved by the following. Forel saw a tolerably large beetle (Hister quadrimaculatus . L.) appear in the midst of a number of F. pratensis, returning from a battle with the red ants, and plunge his head into a pupa. The ants rushed furiously upon him, covered him with bites and poison, and tried to tear away his prey. But the hard outer case of the beetle made all their efforts useless, and the beetle appeared to be perfectly conscious of this and to be sure of his work, so did not let himself be terrified. He kept his head and forefeet firmly fixed to the pupa, and used his remaining four legs for retreat, and so came off uninjured with his prey. Another species of Hister, which tried a similar attack on F. cæspitium (turf ants), was seen by Forel to expire under their stings.

In addition to the beetles, Forel found in considerable numbers in the ants' nests a large, long, white, ringed larva, which was fed and tended by the ants like their own larvæ, and which he regards as the larva of an unknown beetle, which becomes a pupa and emerges elsewhere. Perhaps the ants confound this larva with their own, but some deeper fact may lie in it.

Moggridge very often found in the nests of the harvesting ants-together with little white spring tails, or Poduri, the "silver fish" (Lepisma), and a small species of wood louse (Coluocera atta)—the larvæ of an elater-beetle, of which the ants appear to take great care. Moggridge thinks that this care is quite selfish, and that it is shown in order to make use of the tunnels of the larvæ. A little cricket (Grillus myrmecophilous) is also found in some ants' nests in Italy and France.

Still less is known of the Myrmecophila of non-European

lands than of European, although they are not less numerous. Bates found a peculiar species of snake (Amphisbæna) in the nests of the Sa-uba ants. Julius Fröbel saw in Mexico an antcolony changing its dwelling. In the procession marched some little beetles, resembling our Coccionella semipunctata. If one of these tries to get out of the line of march it is quickly brought back by the ants at its side ("From America," Leipzig, 1875, I. 275). "In Brazil the place of the Aphides is taken by the larvæ and nymphæ of certain crickets, namely, of Cercopis and Membracis, which sit on the plant-stalks sucking at the sap, and from time to time excrete from the abdomen a drop of sweet juice which is eagerly licked up by an ant (F. attelaboides), which caresses the cricket and helps it in changing its skin, just as our ants do with the Aphides. When Aphides, which had not previously been there, were introduced into the gardens of Rio Janeiro, the ants soon recognised their useful properties (Perty, on "The Intellectual Life of Animals," 2nd ed., p. 315). According to Audubon certain leaf bugs are used as slaves by the ants in the Brazilian forests. When these ants want to bring home the leaves which they have bitten off the trees, they do it by means of a column of these bugs, which go in pairs, kept in order on either side by accompanying ants. They compel stragglers to re-enter the ranks, and laggards to keep up by biting them. After the work is done the bugs are shut up within the colony and scantily fed" (Perty, pp. 329 and 330).

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A species of ant which lives in the same country as the remarkable agricultural species, has carried farthest the art of cattle-keeping and milking. It is the Myrmecocystus mexicanus, discovered thirty years ago by a Belgian naturalist, Wesmaël. Among these certain neuter ants, which must belong to a special caste, take the place of the Aphides and Myrmecophila, and so fill their very dilatable abdomens with honey that they look like little round bottles, and can be brought to market as an article of commerce.

"These ants," says Blanchard, "which are very numerous round the town of Dolores and are known in the country under the name of Basileras, live in subterranean dwellings, which do not betray their presence outside. In the earlier part of their life they have an abdomen of the usual size. But it gradually enlarges enormously, owing to the collection

of a syruplike liquid therein, until it resembles a transparent flask. In this condition these so-called honey-ants are unable to move, and hang motionless from the roofs of their dwelling. The women and children of the neighborhood dig up the nests and suck the Basileras. If they are brought to table, the head and thorax are pulled off, and the little honey-filled bladder laid on a plate."

These honey-ants are fed in a special way by their neuter sisters, and are then milked. They never leave the nest, and are therefore in the full sense of the word, like the Clavigers, "stall-cows." Here also the gluttony of the ants and their excessive fondness for honeylike sweets apparently play the chief part.

According to Dr. C. Crüger (" Journal of the Union of Naturalists," Hamburg, II. vol., 1876) the whole community appears to be made up of three kinds of animals, perhaps of different species, one consisting of the feeders and guardians of the honey-preparing caste which never leave the nest, and which bring them pollen and petals with nectaries, while a third large and strong kind with very powerful jaws act as soldiers, and have the duty of guarding the home. They place themselves in a double row in front of the nest, patrol in all directions, and only step out of their ranks to kill an approaching enemy or stranger. There are thus carters, merchants, and soldiers.

TH

CHAPTER X.

INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE.

THEIR love for honey makes ants very dangerous enemies of beehives, into which they often win their way in the most cunning and subtle fashion. Karl Vogt relates in his "Animal Societies" a story, since become very well-known, of the apiary of a friend which was invaded by ants. To make this impossible for the future, the four legs of the beehivestand were put into small, shallow bowls, filled with water, as is often done with food in ant-infested places. The ants soon found a way out of this, or rather a way into their beloved honey, and that over an iron staple with which the stand was attached to a neighboring wall. The staple was removed, but the ants did not allow themselves to be defeated. They climbed into some linden trees standing near, the branches of which hung over the stand, and then dropped upon it from the branches, doing just the same as their comrades do with respect to food surrounded by water, when they drop upon it from the ceiling of the room. order to make this impossible, the boughs were cut away. But once more the ants were found in the stand, and closer investigation showed that one of the bowls was dried up, and that a crowd of ants had gathered in it. But they found themselves puzzled how to go on with their robbery, for the leg did not, by chance, rest on the bottom of the bowl, but was about half an inch from it. The ants were seen rapidly touching each other with their antennæ, or carrying on a consultation, until at last a rather larger ant came forward, and put an end to the difficulty. It rose to its full height on its hind legs, and struggled until at last it seized a rather projecting splinter of the wooden leg, and managed to take hold of it. As soon as this was done other ants ran on to it, strengthened the hold by clinging, and so made a little living bridge, over which the others could

In

easily pass.

"In

The great black ants of the East Indies were seen by Sykes to act in a yet more ingenious way. Sykes' house the dessert was placed on a table in a locked verandah, and covered with a cloth, the legs being placed in vessels of water. But the ants waded through, or, if the water were too deep, clung to each other with their strong legs, and so reached the feet of the table and the Chinese sweetmeats, and although hundreds were killed every day, the next day saw new crowds. Sykes then surrounded the legs of the table with a ring of turpentine, but after a few days they were again among the sweet fruits. The edge of the table stood about an inch from the wall. The large ants clung to the wall with their hind legs and stretched the fore legs across to the edge of the table, and so many managed to cross. Sykes pulled the table further away from the wall, but they then climbed up the wall to about a foot above the table, gave a spring and fell on the fruits" (Perty, p. 341).

The ants are as greedy about syrup and syrup-like fluids as they are about sugar, honey, and sweet fruits. Their cleverness in discovering these is so great, that as the instinct-mongers say, their instinct "borders on human reason;" in reality it is reason, and often surpasses the human acuteness which it is thus vainly sought to defend. When an ant has found such a treasure, it first obeys the inflexible law of egoism, and fills its own stomach as much as possible, until it is quite swollen. It then remembers its duties to its fellowmen, or rather fellow-ants, and after it has left the place, returns in a short time with a number of its comrades, which now do the same.

Dr. Franklin (cited in "Bingley," iv., p. 176,) tells how, in order to test the intelligence of the ants, he put a little earthen pot filled with treacle into an out-of-the-way closet. The ants soon appeared in crowds, and devoured the treacle. He then drove them away, and hung the pot from the ceiling by a string, so that, as he thought, no ant could reach it. A single ant was accidentally left behind in the pot. It eat as much treacle as it could, and then wanted to get away. After long searching it found the string, and made its way back along it. By way of the ceiling and down the wall it again reached the ground. But it had hardly been away an hour when a large swarm of ants arrived, climbed up the