The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-07

JULY 4, 1875.
highest trees, searching every leaf. If
they find a wasps nest they gnaw away
the papery covering to get at the younS
grubs, cutting everything to tatters re-
gardless of the infatuated owners who are
dying about. There is a kind of ant
known 10 science as DOrymyrmex which.
though extremely minute, does not hesi-
tate 10 tackle the largest ant, fastening
itself upon the enemy and biting off has
legs and antennae. 4 field OF battle on
which these little -terrors have fought
against an army OF wood ants is covered
with fragmentary remains. Sometimes
they attack the harvest ting ants, destroy
ing a colony and carrying off all the stored
provisions These harvesting ants are
very numerous IN Texas, and are famous
for their skill as agrculturists. They
plant real fields Of gFaiu cultiyat:ng va
rious species Of grasses which serve them
as cereals. When the seeds of the grasses
ripen ana fan to ground the ants car
~ them to their storehouses and put them
away.
Now and then fierce wars occur between
two colonies of harvesting ants, which
send out armies against each other. The
common pavement ants, which throw up
little hills of gravel between paving stones
and in gardens, are great fighters, ana
sometimes war breaks out between two
communities of them that live only a foot
or two apart. Such conflicts are apt to be
started by The intrusion Of members of one
colony into the subterranean galleries of
the other. Ants generally when at war
make It a rule to carry their wounded off
Of the field of battle, but the injured of
the enemy they leave TO die or take away
10 eat There is nothing very pleasant
about The character of an ant; at the same
~ Ia AZ
unseldsh traits, the business of rearing the
young being conducted by the workers
with indefatigab,e care. Customarily they
bury their own dead after a fight Those
species OF ants which have no sting pos
sess, nevertheless, tail-gland that Sc
cretes formic acid, which evidently is dis
agreeable and perhaps poiso1ous to4nsects
of this order. If the top of one OF the
mounds of the so-called mOund~buidlhg
ants be knocked Off Immediately the Crea-
lures rush by myriads TO the defense o.
their dwelling. The observer, watching
from short distance, can see, II he holds
his eye at the proper level, sort of line
spray or mist rising from the broken
mound. This IS formic acid, which the In
sects are discharsing to drive off the enc
my
In every ant colony, whatever the spe-
cles, there is usually a distinct class OF
citizens who constitute a sort of warrior
caste, DclHS provided Win HNSS llCdu9 oA4N
jaws. They do no work whatever, appar-
entity their business being to fight How
ever, there is a South = merican species,
not at all warHile, which live in trees, and
the big-headed fellows are employed as
living shoppers to close up the small holes
of entrance to the nest, One of the most
remarkable engineering works of ants IS a
tunnel that has been made by a tribe Ct
the leaf-cutting species under the
bed of the Parahyba river,
near Rio, at a place where the stream
mentioned is as broad as the Thames at
London bridge. Not far from Para ants
Of this kind pierced the embankment OF
a large reservoir and the great body of
water which it contained escaped before
the damage could be repaired. These ants
have been known to carry off the contents
of a two-bushel basket of mandioca meal
in a single night taking it grain by grain.
While each nation of ants has its stand
ing army, the notion of an ant navy seems
hardly credible. Yet a well-known natu-
talist says that on one occasion he saw a
formidable body of military ants embark
on a lot of ships that were floating slowly
down a stream, subsequently landing at
a point of considerable distance below and
proceeding on what appeared 10 be a To-
ray. 1t is a fact familiar enough that
the worker ants, which make up the main
body of each community, are females I'M
developed seXually. Likewise, the big
headed soldiers seem to be abnormal fe-
males-a body of Amazons, in word The
males among ants are not of much account
except for reproductive purposes being
Matched out at certain seasons and dying
in a few days. The males have wings
and in some species the females possess
wings also. The business of the queen
ant Is very much the same as that of a
queen bee; she lays all the eggs, and the
workers look out for the feeding of the
young when they have been Matched.
Worker ants in captivity have been
known to live thirteen years.