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Show HOW ANTS MAKE SLAVES. Wkrilori Make Jtnldi AfcfUrnt Noitl of the Small Turf Ant. Tho warrior ant Is a Blave-making species.-. It Is a largo red ant, and It makes raids against ncBts of tho small yollow turf ant, a mild and docllo race, largo numbers of which It carries off to act as servants. But It does not steal fully grown turf ants; their hnb-tts hnb-tts aro formed and they would be useless use-less for such a purpose. What tho warrior ant wants Is a raw material, which can be turned Into thoroughly well trained servants. So It meroly kills the adult ants which strlvo to opposo Its aggression, and contents Itself It-self with trundling homo to Its own nest tho larvao and pupao of tho turf ants which It has put to lllght and vanquished. van-quished. In time these grubs and cocoons co-coons produce full grown yellow workers, work-ers, which can bo taught by tho warrior war-rior ants to act as nurses and houso-malds. houso-malds. I once saw in a garden In Algiers Al-giers a great pitched battlo going on between slavemakors and the family of tho future elavcs, In which tho ground was strewn with tho corpses' or the vanquished. Not till tho nest of tho smaller ants was almost exterminated extermin-ated did they retlro from the unequal contest and allow the proud Invader to carry off their brothers and sisters in their cOcoons, asleep and unconscious. Occasionally, by dint of more numbers, they boat off the Invader with heavy loss; but much more often tho largo and strong-Jawed wnrrlors, nnd destroy to a worker tho opposing op-posing forces. They crush their adversaries' ad-versaries' heads with their vlso-llko mandibles. Meanwhile, within the nest the' other half of the workers tho division di-vision told oft as upcclal nurses aro otherwlso employed In defending and protecting tho rising generation. At tho first alarm, at tho first watchword passed with waving antenao through the, nest, "A warrior host Is attacking lis I" they hurry to tho chambers whero tho cocoons nre stored and bear them off In their mouths Into the recesses ot tho nest, tho lowest and most Inaccessible Inacces-sible of all tho chambers. Strand Magazine. |
