C. C. M.
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| PRESENTED BY LOUIS G. KUNZE. | PINEAPPLE. ½ Life-size. | COPYRIGHT 1899, NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. |
LITTLE BUSYBODIES.
BELLE P. DOWNEY.
ONE'S own observation tends to confirm the wonderful stories told by naturalists about ants. They have a claim to rank next to man in intelligence.
Seven or eight ants once attempted to carry a wasp across the floor. In the course of the journey they came to a crevice in a plank caused by a splinter which had been torn off. After repeated attempts to cross this deep ravine all the ants abandoned the task as hopeless except one who seemed to be the leader of the enterprise. He went on a tour of investigation, and soon found that the crevice did not extend very far in length. He then went after the retreated ants. They obeyed the summons and returned, when all set about helping to draw the wasp around the crevice. This little incident proves the ant is possessed of the power of communicating its wishes to others. Ants have been seen to bite off the legs of a cockroach in order to get it into the narrow door of their nest. The brain of ants is larger in proportion to their size than that of any other insect. Naturalists think that they have memory, judgment, experience, and feel hatred and affection for their kind. They are valorous, pugnacious, and rapacious, but also inclined to be helpful as they assist each other at their toilet. They have a peculiarity among insects of burying their dead. It is a curious fact that the red ants, which are the masters, never deposit their dead by the side of their black slaves, thus seeming to show some idea of caste.