Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-06-04
Relations Of Animals and Plants.

CERTAIN plants are benefited by ants,
which are not only inimical to caterpil-
lars and slugs, OF TO other kinds of ants,
which would destroy the foliage of such
plants, but are even by their numbers,
voracity, and powers of biting and sting
ing, capable Of protecting them from
large animals, such as cattle, or even
from man. For this purpose, certain
plant (e. g., the Bulls Horn acacia and
some Others) maintain standing armies
Of these active insects, being provided
with special cavities which serve them
for barracks and with special nutritive
growths, which supply the rations for
the army and can be eaten without
detriment TO the plant. Plants of the
genus TTiplaris have not only their
trunks, but their smallest branches and
twigs hollow, serving as the habitations
of brown ants, which rush out in multi
tudes, if the tree be touched or shaken,
and bite furiously. Again, the trumpet
tree (CeCrOpiG peitdtd) has q hollow
stem, which is divided into cells by
transverse partitions. The ants gain
access to cell by making hole from
the outside, and then burrow through
the partitions, thus getting the run of
the whole stem. Some cells they de-
vote to the reception Of eggs, others to
grubs, and others to pupm, while a
queen ant will inhabit cell by herself.
II the tree be shaken, the ants
rush out in myriads and search
about for the molester. But these
ants do not live on any natural
product of the tree directly, but strange
to say, they bring into it herd of in
sect cattle (scale-insects, like the cochi-
neal insect) which they, as it were,
milk, while the cattle, safely stabbed in
the cells, live by sucking the juices Of
the tree, which thus not only shelters,
but also indirectly nourishes, its defen-
siVe army of ants. The milk of the
| scale-insects is a certain honey-like
| fluid which they secrete, which exudes
from them, and which the ants greedily
devour. This habit of cattle-keeping is
not peculiar to these tree-inhabiting
ants, but is practiced by some other
kinds which keep domesticated aphides
in their nests. But ants are not only
provided with free quarters by some
| plants, but also, as before said, with
rations. In the Bulls Horn acacia Just
mentioned, the ants are both securely
housed and also furnished with bounti-
full supply of food, and to secure the at
tendance of the garrison at the right
time and place, this food Is so arranged
and distributed as to effect that object
with wonderful perfection. The leaves
are bi-pinnate. At the base of each
pair of leaflets, ON the midrib, is a
crater-shaped gland, which, when the
leaves are young, secretes honey-like
| liquid. OF this the ants are very fond
and they are constantly running about
from one gland to another to sip up the
honey as it is secreted. But this is not
all; there is a still more wonderful pro-
vision of more solid food. At the end
Of each of the small divisions of the
compound leailet there is, when the leaf
first unfolds, little yellow fruit-like
body united by point at its base to the
end of the pinnule. Examined through
microscope, this little appendage
looks like a golden pear. Whom the
leaf first unfolds, the little pears are not
quite ripe, and the ants are continually
employed going from one TO another,
examining them. When an ant finds
one sufficiently advanced, it bites the
small point of attachment; then, BEND
ing down the fruit-like body, it breaks
it off and bears it away in triumph TO
its nest. All the fruit-like bodies do not
ripen at once, but successfully, so that
the ants are kept about the young leaf
for some time after it unfolds. Thus the
young leaf is always guarded by ants,
and no caterpillar or larger animal
could attempt to injure it without being
attacked by the little warriors. We have
n still more remarkable plant in the
My1mec0dia tubeTosa, which has large,
irregular, tuber-like stem, resembling
wasp's nest, growing on trees, and
bearing feshy leaves and small flowers.
This structure is riddled with galleries
formed by ants which inhabit it, and
these excavations not only do not seem
TO injure it, but are said to be necessary
to enable it to flourish. Its seed is
somewhat like that of the mistletoe, and
terminates on any suitable branch upon
which it may have fallen. 1t then grows
TO certain extent, but if not perforated
by the ant, fails (as we hear) to develop
itself further and dies. The beneficial
action of the ant is by no means yet un-
derstood.-St. George Migart, m Con-
temporary ReUieiU.