The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1888-02-09

fend against enemies and carry Will
them when they move from place tc
place. These herds are composed OF
vine-fretters and gall insects. They
bring them home and milk them by
sucking their abdomen, many being
nourished exclusively upon this sweet
liquid. They win them over by feed,
ing them upon sprigs or roots, as theil
manner of life may be, and lodging
them in airy pavilions or underground
passages, according to their taste.
These little insects constitute their
principal wealth, and az farm with
its cattle, so an ant-hill with its plant
lice is considered more or less rich.
according to the number in possession.
With what passion they wage war for
the possession of a yine-fretter tree,
and with what ludlcrous tenacity they
extricate these insects, larger than
themselves, when they are embedded
in the bark. They persevere in pull
ing them out, but as they are careful
not to wound they do not hurt them.
All this, together with the evident sat-
isfaction the fretters show at being
MIXED, proves them to be an impor-
tant elem ent in the domestic economy
of their owners.
Their wars are too well known for
us to enlarge upon them. Often fero-
cious and merciless, they are waged
for the possession of the fretters and
the larvae destined to yield slaves.
Their military procedures vary with
different tribes. The jaw Of the great
slave, or Amazon ant. is very strong,
and armed with sharp-pointed saw
teeth. They attack their enemy by
inclosing his head in their wide-open
jaws and then wrenching it off A
smaller variety fall upon their adversar-
les legs and pull them out. Again
the modus operandi of the formica
excesta is to spring upon his enemy's
back and in dead earnest perform the
quick job of saving off his head.
Military tactics, with sentinels and
Reconnaissance, sieges according to
rule, cities pillaged, children carried
away, prisoners executed; all that
ancient human warfare portrays we
see repeated to an exaggerated de-
gree among ants. Some of them have
SO abused authority and CARED tyranny
to that extent that they have them
selves become the slaves of their vas
sails and can not exist without them.
Such is the case with the Amazon
ants. These warriors in brown attire
are puissant and redoubted knights
whose aristocratic hands have never
touched either wood or hammer,
who contemn the art of building and
the responsibility of domestic life,
whose implements of toll, the chisel.
the saw and the trowel, from long dis
use have disappeared from their jaws
to be replaced by two terrible cine
tiers fit only for works of MUIR
der and rapine. There lives are spent
carrying war and devastation among
their peaceful neighbors for the poses
sion of their valuable slaves, which
to them are as indispensable as the
newly born, for being without the
faculty of feeding themselves these
effeminate nabobs would perish with
hunger beside the daintiest viands did
not their devoted servitors place their
food Immediately within their mouths
This varied social organization, with
its castles and division of labor, its
towns as populous as London or Paris,
in which all the inhabitants recognize
each other, its feuds between neighbor-
ing cities, its territories organized and
defended, its wars, its combats, all
show an intellectual state but slightly
inferior to that of the savage human
tribes in the heart of Africa or the isl
ands of Oceanica. Ants even have
their graveyards. Yes, real grave
yards, placed at some distance from
their cities, to which they carry their
dead. Some tribes Of ants have first
class tombs for their citizens of dis
and head masters and pits for
the common herd. The first are placed
side by side with great care, and the
Others heaped pell nell and without
order. Again 1 repeat, all this has
been proven, together with many other
facts too numerous TO recall, notwith-
standing the interest attaching to
them.
Here we see a wonderful creation,
worthy of the students attention: a
creation different, certainly, from my
own, hut one in which ANALYSIS has re-
vealed intellectual workings which we
would not dare to put forward had we
not scrupulously studied the subject.
Here is little being that thinks. Let
us not 60 beyond this fact. An ants
brain thinks, and holds within its limit
a world of ideas, impressions, decisions
and reasonings. It's this fact above
all others that l wish for the present
to impress upon the thinking being
man.
l was curious to know what such
brain weighed. To ascertain this.
neuter ants (the others not
of different species. in groups
of one hundred each. and l found
among other results for the brown ant,
the one most common in our country,
that they weighed fifteen centigrammes
a hundred. One ant weighed one mill
igramme and half. The same process
showed that the head weighed about
one-third that of the body, and dissec-
ton has proved the cerebral nervous
system of this insect is about equal to
n third Of thnt ,E +h1 Lonl