River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1893-12-14
INSTINCT IN ANIMALS.
The W onderful Smartness of the Ant and
or the Nvood.vekor.


or the yvoodpoeEor.
The arts OF collecting provisions,
storing and preserving food, domesti-
eating and managing flocks, 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 a curious analogy in their
development in the case of the more
backward among the man communi-
ties.
Ants of the same species both have
and have not learned TO keep cattle"
Lespes found a tribe of black ants
which had a flock of cows" which
they MIXED daily But he also discov-
cred nest of the same species which
had no fioclSs. 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 tribe Of Australian black
fellows" when presented with flock
of sheep.
A little known and striking instance
of foresight and industry exhibited by
a bird is that of the California wood
pecker. Like others of its kind this
bird is an insect eater. Yet, in view
of the approach of winter, il prepares
a store of food of wholly different
character, and arranges this with as
much care as an epicure might devote
10 the storage of his wine in cellar.
In the summer the woodpecker lives on
ants. For the winter it stores up
acorns. To hold each acorn ii hollows
a small hole in a 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 store.
To prevent this it selects the
hollow stem of species of
aloe, the bore of (which Is just
large enough TO hold a nut. The
woodpeclxer drills holes at intervals in
the stem, and it fills il from bottom to
top with the nuts, the separate holes
being apparently made for convenience
IL.
The intelligence which not only con-
structs special storehouse, but teaches
the woodpecker to lay by only the
nuts which will keep, and not the in
sects which would decay, is perhaps
the highest form of bird reasoning
which has yet been observed.
The common ants of Italy. il 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
mp oats and various kinds of
grain, making hundreds of little
rooms as granaries of about the
size Of watch But grain lying in
the ground naturally terminates. How
the ants prevent this is not known
Probably by ventilation. as bees ven
tilate their hives by artificial draught
All that is certain is that IL the ants
are removed the grain sprouts. When
the ants wish to use the store they al
low the grains 70 germinate, until the
chemical change takes place in the
material which makes its fermenting
juice 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.