The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1907-06-11
For the
Younger
Children.

quires to be fed only once a month,
and then with honey and water on a
sponge.
These little people are indefatig-
able builders. 1t takes them only
five years to build n nest that rises
two feet above ground, has a circum-
ference of four feet and network of
subterranean passages and rooms ex-
tending two feet under ground. They
like to build upon grassy hillocks,
and sometimes choose large stones,
under which they tunnel to a depth
of two feet Such an ant city con-
tains on an average twenty thousand
inhabitants.
An ant colony is not a simple. ho-
mogenous collection of individuals.
There is a queen, to start with. 1t
is she who forms the new nest. Set
thing down into some crevice OF the
new earth at the end of August or
early in September, she digs a hole
for herself with her mandibles, or
Jaws, and settles down for her winter
sleep. In April she wakes up and
begins to found her new colony by
laying about fifty eggs, which hatch
out shortly into worker ants. The
majority of these workers spend all
their time in looking after the queen,
who now devotes all her time to lay
ing eggs. She lays about fifty a day.
So, besides the queen mother, there
soon come to be the workers, the
male ants, the princess Cor female)
ants and the larvae and cocoons,
w nh In hn INT Il To- 10
stages, before they get to be really
ants. The workers are yellow, while
the princesses, which are fifteen or
twenty times the size of the workers,
are black, like the males.
Naturally, all these different
classes of people require different ac-
commodations in the lilliputian city.
(You cannot ask a queen to accept
the same accommodations as a nurs-
cry maid, even in a formicarium.)
But, in addition to the ants them
selves, there are their COWS, and the
blind beetles, which the ants seem to
value for the sweet juice they secrete
perhaps they think 1t is honey
and the little blind wood lice, who
seem to act as a corps of white
wings" All these creatures can be
watched through the glass OF a for
micarium, which does not differ much
either in population or structure from
natural habitation.
So 1t comes about that their cities
are wonderful examples of engineer
ing and architectural skill, with a
principal or central chamber, con-
Meeting by highroads like arteries
with all the rooms, corridors, stables,
and what not where the colony is
housed. For reasons of safety the
main passage narrows sharply to-
ward the entrance. where a sentry
always sits Oh guard. Let a stranger
ant wander into the enclosure, and
Immediately the whole city is thrown
into a state Of confusion. without
leaving his post the sentry has given
notice Of impending danger. The
first act of the alarmed inhabitants
Is to place their queen, with the
larvae and cocoons, in the sanctum,
or inner chamber, after which they
place extra sentries on guard and pre-
pare a general resistance to attack.
A town of twenty thousand yellow
meadow ants will keep about three
hundred COWS, it has been estimated.
The ants themselves see to it that
their stock gets the fodder best adapt
ed to It by planting the seeds OF GER
tain plants on which they thrive,
while these same wonderful creatures
contrlve, with a little management,
to have fresh herds for the commun-
ity every spring.
IN a state of nature a queen ant
Will live twenty-five years and a
worker twelve years. In the artificial
nest they live six or seven years II
not oyerfed New York Tribune.