The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-25
INTERESTING HABITS OF ANTS
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN


 When a freight train suddenly tumbled through trestle some time ago to the astonishment of the crew, and to the great disaster of the rolling stock aisl commodities carried, an investigation was made to see what could have caused 1t. It was in no dangerous place, the most modern engineering skill had been em- ployed in its construction, and the iron bolts and timbers seemed to have been good for many years. The investigation brought about the fact that the wooden piers and supports of the trestle work had been literally honey-eombed by ants. They had cut passage after passage in the wood, building houses of many cham bers one above the other, leaving only thread-like bits of the timber between with the result that there was little strength left in the structure.
 Scientists then set about finding out more about these little citizens who could do so much damage in such quiet way. Eager for the work, some packed their grips and went to Texas to study the agricultural ant in her own fields, and some went to the middle west to see what the carpenter ant was doing besides eating up railroad trestles. The department of agriculture sent men to Guatemala to get acquainted with the Kelep, and see If 1t were really true that she could destroy boll-weevils while a New York woman captured several colo nies of ants, put them In artificial nests in her home, and devoted her time to a study of their habits.
 All this study contributed many novel and startling facts to the present-day knowledge of ants It was found that they are strong for the new woman idea, the workers of the ant hills all being IA dnCt1- nies of the race, and the Kings keep as much out of the way as possible, being only barely tolerated by the workers, who have such advanced Ideas on wom- ans rights. There are well-trained reg1- ments of soldiers, efficient policemen on guard at the village gates, trained nurses to care for the newly matched pupae, masons brick makers and carpenters-all females An army of busy black slaves is continually under the watchful eyes of the captors, and a herd of "ant cows. the auhides, or plant lice, Is carefully tended and fed that 1t may furnish sweet fluid for the support of the colo nies.
 We have way of saying that man who works hard works like a Trojan Virgil wrote in his Aeneid that the Tro- jans reminded him of swarms of ants as they worked. The amount of labor that one busy ant can accomplish in one day is almost unbelievable She has been known to dig a ditch along the highway Of her home village at the rate Of an men day, the ditch being many times deeper than herself and the dirt taken out being moulded into bricks and put along the edge to form a wall embankment. If a man did an equal amount of work in proportion to his size he would be ex- pelled from the union for working over time.
 As engineers the cnts have accomplished feats that make the great works or man. such as bridging the Lucin Cutoff. and corkscrewing down the North Carolina mountains from the Swannanoa tunnel, look Ike child's play. They invented tubular bridges long before an intelli- gent Ca nadan government threw the Vic toria bridge across the St. Lawrence, and the ant bridge was formed of living tube of little bodies closely knit together. The suspension bridges of the South American streams built with such care, by natives with the use of much rope and vine, was anticipated hundreds of years before by ants, who hung them selves in a line. the one holding to the hind legs of the one above him until a rope Ifany feet long was formed. When the floating end was blown across the river by a kindly breeze, the lower ant seized twig or branch of tree and, holding firmly, completed the living bridge over which the migrating colony or the burden bearers could safely cross.
 The small red ant, the pest of the pantry in country or town, is as clever as she is bothersome. Many a time despairing housewife has marked path of tar around the legs of tables or refrigerators to find next day that the engineering corps had brought grains Of sand to build a bridge over the tar, and that the workers were merrily carrying off the sugar, syrup or whatever they had decided to store away for winter. Once when sand was lacking it was found that the workers had returned to their village and had brought over drove of their cows and had stuck them in the tar, cheerfully sacrificing them to the urgent needs of commerce.
 Learning that chalk lines drawn on the floor would keep ants away, the acid in the chalk being too strong for the sensitive ant noses, a man once drew a thick line around a party of ants that was foraging across his kitchen floor. he kept them there several days as none would cross the line. Finally, feeling sorry for them, he chopped up some fine grass and dropped 1t in the circle that they might eat and keep from starving. Eat!
 
 of grass, bore them piece by piece to the chalk line, built a pyramid, and when 1t was high enough pushed it over the line, thus making a green bridge over which the prisoners triumphantly passed.
 Miss Adele l.. Fielde of New York. discovered many wonderful things in re- gard to the colonies she kept in her home. She found that they are blind, deaf and dumb. and that they use their antennae for almost all the purposes of the hu- man senses. The antennae have from four to thirteen joints, and each joint directs the ant in some special sense To remove one joint would deprive the ant of any idea of direction and she could never find her home. To take away a certain other one would make her fail to recognize her own relatives It is believed that ants tell one another only by the sense of smell, as each of these tiny insects has peculiar scent or odor of its own. The talent of a bloodhound is nothing compared to that of an ant when it is necessary to trace by smell. Instead of hearing with ears, Miss Fielde's colony discerned all vii brations, even to the very tiniest, through their feet
 They are very hard to kill An ant