The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-12-12
INSTINCT IN ANIMALS.
The Wonderful, Smartness of the Ant and
of the Woodpecker.


of the Woodpecker.
The arts of collecting provisions,
storing and preserving food, domesti-
eating and managing fiocks, and cap
turing slaves are quite as well under
stood by animals and insects as by man
In the earlier stages of his civilization,
and show curious analogy in their
development in the case of the more
backward among the man commune
ties.
Ants of the same species both have
and have not learned to keep cattle"
Lespes found tribe of black ants
which had flock of COWS" which
they MIXED daily. But he also discov-
cred nest of the same species which
had no focks. These he presented
with some of the aphides used by their
own cow-keeping relations. The ants
instantly attacked, killed, and ate
them, behaving in same improvident
manner as a tribe of Australian 'black
fellows" when presented with flock
of sheep.
little known and striking instance
OF foresight and industry exhibited by
bird is that of the California wood
pecl<er. Like others of its kind this
bird is an insect eater. Yet, in view
of the approach of winter, it prepares
a store Of food of wholly different
character, and arranges this with as
mach care as an epicure might devote
TO the storage of his wine in cellar.
In the summer the woodpecl1er lives Oh
ants. For the winter it stores up
acorns. To hold each acorn it hollows
small hole in tree, into which the
acorns are exactly fitted, and is ready
to be split by the strong beak of the
climbing wookpecker, though too
tightly held to be stolen either by
squirrels or other birds
A relation of this woodpecker in
habits the dryest parts of Mexico.
where during the droughts it must die
of starvation unless it made a store.
To prevent this it selects the
hollow stem of a species of
aloe, the bore Of (which is Just
large enough to hold nut. Tho
woodpecker drills holes at intervals in
the stem, and it fills it from bottom to
being apparently made for convenience
of access to the column of nuts within.
The intelligence which not only con-
structS a special storehouSe, but teaches
the woodpecl5er to lay by only the
nuts which will keep. and not the in
sects which weuld decay, is perhaps
the highest form of bird reasoning
which has yet been observed
The common ants of Italy. if not SO
strangely ingenious as the gardener
ants of the tropics, which prepare a
particular soil on which to grow with
in their nests the fungus on which
alone they feed, exhibit what is
probably the most complex form
of instructive industry shown by
any European animal They store
up oats and various kinds of
grain, making hundreds OF little
rooms as granaries of about the
size of a watch. But grain living in
the ground naturally terminates How
the ants prevent this is not known.
Probably by ventilation. as bees VEN
tilate their hives by artificial draueht
All that is certain is that if the ants
are removed the grain sprouts. When
the ants wish TO use the store they al
low the grains to terminate, until the
chemical change takes place in tho
material which makes it's fermentiup
jnice food suitable for their digestion.
They arrest the process of change of
destroying the sprout, and use the
stock of glutinous sugar and starch so
left as their main food in winter
London Spectator