[THE ANT COUNTRY.]
BY JULIA K. HILDRETH.
Of late years scientific men have been calling our attention to the habits of certain familiar animals and insects, about which we believed we knew all there was to know. We could hardly believe, for instance, that common black ants are a very enlightened and intelligent nation; that they have a queen, who governs them, a body of soldiers who protect the community, nurses whose sole business it is to take care of and feed the little ones, and a class of workers who provide the food and build the dwellings for the ant people.
It is also a curious fact, which some of our readers may not know, that ants keep cows, very much as human beings do. The cows in this case are certain small green bugs, no larger than the head of a pin, which live upon the leaves of a plant like the blackberry. Instead of milk, these ant cows give a sweet fluid like honey, of which the ants are very fond.
The ants keep these cows upon their proper leaves, treating them very kindly, and driving off all insects that might do them harm. They watch them constantly, and at certain times in the day milk them, and carry the milk, or rather honey, into the common dwelling, where it is stored up for future use.
All these facts any child may learn with very little trouble; and there is hardly any more interesting occupation than watching a hill of these active little people, taking care not to disturb them. Among other experiments, place a small piece of cake a short distance from the hill, and observe what follows. First, one ant, who appears to be exploring the neighborhood, comes upon the cake. He will stop, approach it more closely, touch it with his feelers, and after he has satisfied himself that it is fit for use, bite off as large a piece as he can carry.
Now follow him carefully on his homeward journey. He will almost always be sure to meet a companion out upon a similar expedition. The loaded ant will permit the other ant to touch and smell of his prize. He will then lay his load aside for a moment, and you will notice the two putting their heads close together as if conferring over a great secret.
It is not known how these little creatures manage to communicate their thoughts to each other, but they evidently have the power to do so in some manner; for you will see the two ants rub their heads together and then separate, the loaded one continuing on to the hill, while the other one goes straight toward the rest of the cake. He has no doubt received accurate directions, perhaps like—"The sweet stuff, such as I have here, lies beside the round stone, to the left of the alder bush, near the brook. There is plenty of it, and only one of those great human beings in sight. But he appears to be asleep, so you need not mind him."
The ant who is hurrying toward the cake will probably meet with others of his tribe, and the same rubbing of heads will take place between them, after which the whole of them will hurry toward the cake. Very soon there will be hundreds of these little fellows running backward and forward with pieces of cake in their jaws, and if the lump you have placed upon the ground is not too large, they will soon carry every morsel of it away.
If you chance to see any number of ants climbing up or down a shrub, such as a blackberry or rose bush, you may be sure that the ants have a cow pasture somewhere upon it. If you carefully follow one of the climbers, he will lead you to the spot. There you will see a dozen or twenty very small bugs quietly feeding upon the leaves. You will notice that the ants seem to be very busy among them, touching this one, pushing that one, and altogether appearing to take a great interest in their herd. The cows do not seem to suffer in the least. They look fat and lazy, and appear to regard the ants very much as real cows do human beings.