| OCR Text |
Show HARVESTING ANTS. Moggridge found that from the nest in various directions there proceeded outgoing trains, which may be thirty or more yards in length and each consisting of a double row of ants moving in opposite directions. Like the leaf-cutting ants, those composing the outgoing trains are empty handed, while those composing the incoming train are laden. But here the burdens are grass seeds. At their terminations in the foraging grounds, or not fields, the insects composing these columns disperse by hundreds among the seed yielding grasses. They then ascend the stems of the grasses and, seizing the seed or capsule in their jaws, fix their hind legs firmly as a pivot, round which they turn and turn till the stalk is twisted off. The ant then descends the stem, patiently backing and turning upward again as often as the clumsy and disproportionate burden becomes wedged between the thickly set stalks, and joins the line of its companions to the nest. . . Two ants sometimes combine their efforts, when one stations itself near the base of the peduncle, and gnaws it at the point of greatest tension, while the other hauls upon and twists it. I have occasionally seen ants engaged in cutting the ?? of certain plants drop them, and a low their companions below to carry them away; and this corresponds with the curious account given by Lespis of the manner in which the spikelets of corn are severed and thrown down "to the people below." As further evidence that these insects well understand the advantages arising from the division of labor, I may quote one or two other observations. Thus, Moggridge once saw a dead grasshopper carried into a nest of harvesting ants by the following means: It was too large to pass through the door, so they tried to dismember it. Failing in this, several ants drew the wings and legs as far back as possible, while others gnawed through the muscles where the strain was greatest. They succeeded at last in pulling it in. Again, Lespis says of the harvesting ant, that if the road from the place where they are gathering their harvest to the nest is very long, they make regular depots for their provisions under large leaves, stones or other suitable places, and let certain workers have the duty of carrying them from depot to depot. No less, therefore, than the leaf-cutting ants already described, do these harvesting ants appreciate the benefit arising from the division of labor, and, as we shall presently see, there is a kind of ant exhibiting widely different habits which shows appreciation of this principle in an even higher degree. When the grain is taken into their nest by the harvesters it is stored in regular granaries, but not until it has been denuded of its "husks" or "chaff." The denuding process, which corresponds to threshing, is carried on below ground and the chaff is brought up to the surface, where it is laid in heaps to be blown away by the wind. It is not yet understood why the seed, when thus stored in subterranean chambers just far enough below the surface to favor germination does not germinate.-The Nineteenth Century. |
