The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1883-05-17
ANTS AND THEIR CURIOUS WAYS.


To keen clean even half an hour.
-.ea..f Clara DOtH Bates, ia Wide-AOdke.
ANTS AND THEIR CURIOUS WAYS. |
You would hardly know how to go to
work to find out the daily life and du-
ties of creatures so little as ants. Yet
the scientific men who have spent years
in the study have learned not only their
habits, how they make their homes and
bring mp their babies, what they eat and
how they fight, but have even gone SO
far as to discover some OF their senti-
lnents and emotions. A late book on
animal intelligence, published by the
Appletons, tells some very interesting
things about them.
One naturalist who has studied their
ways found that some of them feel
friendship. and pity for suffering, and
he tells it thus:
s'One day, watching small column
of these ants, / placed little stone on
one of them to securei it. They rushed
to the rescue; some bit at the stone
and tried to move it, others seized the
prisoner by the legs and tugged with
such force that thought the legs would
be pulled of, but they persevered TIL
they got the captive free. l next COW
cred one up with a piece of clay, leav-
ing only the ends of its antennR pro-
iectinU 1t was soon discovered by its
fellows, which set to work Immediately,
and by biting of pieces of the clay soon
liberated it. The excitement and ardor
with which they carried on their untlag-
ring exertions for the rescue of their
comrade could not have been greater if
! they had been human beings"
4 Another writer gives a curious ac-
I fl,f hnn-
/ yestinU ant-sleeps and awakes:
/ TO illustrate the soundness of the
sleep, / take the quill-pen with which l
write and apply the feather end Of it TO
an ant who is asleep. She has chosen
little oval depression in the surface, and
/ lies with face toward the lamp. Her
/ legs are drawn up close to the body.
She is perfectly still / gently draw the
feather tip along the body. 'stroking
with the fur if / may SO say. There Is
no motion" After trying in vain to
waken her by various motions of the
feather end of the pen, he finally
arouses the sleeper by sharp touch OF
the quill ''She stretches out her head,
then her legs, which she also shakes,
steps nearer to the light and begins to
cleanse herself. This act invariably
follows the waking of ants from sleep.
(Another good example from the ants
YOU see) II have several times seer
the ants yawning after awakening.
use this word for lack of one which
more accurately expresses the behavior
The action is very much like that OF the
human animal; the mandibles are
thrown omen. the tongue il
sometimes thrust out, and the limbs
stretched with the appearance at least
of that tension which accompanies th'
yawn in the genus L0n1o.
The old story of ants indulging in
games and play was for long tim'
thought to be "A fable, but grave scien
tific gentlemen of our day have seen It
= and we shall have to believe it now
queer as it seems. The old story wa
told bv Huber, who e.saw these ants OF
a fine day assembled on the surface o
r their nests, and behaving in way tina
he could only explain as Stimulating tes
, tivaI sports or other games. The.
raised themselves on their hind legs
/ embraced each other with their fOu
legs, seized each other by the antenDa,
: feet, or mandibles, and wrestled, but al
: in friendliest fashion. They then le
+. 90. ran after each other, and playc
hide-and-seek. When one was victOri
Y Gus. it seized all the others in the rim
Z. and tumblcd them over like nine-pins.
, So much for the old writer; now say
- the new: The players caught each othe
$ by the feet or jaws, rolled over eac
other on the ground like boys playing
pulled each other inside the entrance {
= their nest, only to come out again, an
u so on. All this was done without ba
= temper, or any squirting of poison, an
4 it was clear that all the rivalry wa
friendly"
1t must be startling thing to break
I twig from a tree and see the live an
" run out Yet it may be done in Ne
South Wales, where one family of an
l. regularly makes its home inside II
.e branches, digging out the pith even
the twigs, and not harming the life
ie the tree in the least.
v That il no more curious home tha
!. one made by another family out Of tr'
IF leaves glued together in some way
,e form a hollow ball, and lined with
N sort of paper, the whole hanging to Il
le branch.
To build bridge would surely see
TO be beyond the power of even 80 WI
little creatures as ants, yet they ha'
accomplished this hard thing in mo
than one way. One party OF ant
wishing to go up into.a tree, for reaso
of their own, found their way stOpp
/ DV q DFOdu ClDbus SOdhVA III bDD.'~
water Did they give it upP Far fro
~ It. They went back to the groun
IIe where each ant provided itself with
y small ball Of earth, returned, and Ia
~ the balls side by side till they formed
~ bridge over the cloth, and went up a
oI down it as long as they choose.
lic Again, man who wished 70 ke
ne ants out of favOrite tree put ring
~ birdlime around the trunk, but th'
too, built bridge of earth and lit
stones, which carried them safely ov
At another time some ants viii
ev were imprisoned when up in tree,
les a ring of tar around the trunk, bt
er their bridge, not Of earth and ston
,b. which, of course, they could not, but
VI living aphides, Of which there w
nd plenty. One after another Of these
on fortunates were planted in the tar
,et the bridge was completed and the a.
80 could pass over OitCe 1hOT71e MI
ed ia Ctrtsttar1 Union.
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