Show THE ANT bearn of her how lo 10 be aa adeel socialist jt now beang past noon and foial cas thoughts turning to refreshments she bled her belt to the outskirts ot the epst where the family effs were pas turell cows or aphides were feeding on tile leaves of the daisy into which they plunge their proboscides and stick all day long filling their bodies with pleasant juices our ant came up behind an aphis and stroked it gentie aitu her antennae when the little creature gave out a drop of her sweet liquid which formica d into her own crop there were tho a sands of these aphides pasturing on the leaves and thousands of ants maik ing them most of the ants took of the juice into their crops than they needed and on the way back to work gave up a part of it to friends whom they met going to the cows thus ing the others time and enabling them to resume their moa e quick ly the ants were making the most of the aphis juke during the summer days knowing that the supply would fall off later when the aphides laid their eggs note here the superior mental equipoise of the ant which neither betrays surprise nor writes to the newspapers when her cows begin to lay eggs these eggs the ante would store over willei tending them with the utmost care u g when the young aphides are brought out and placed on the sai of the daisy to mature and provi de food again during the hot weather this tar sightedness is unexampled in the animal kingdom other insects an d animals put away stores for the wi inter to be sure but the ant Is the one of them that breeds its own food supply having tab en her fill of the sweet juice on this particular day formica noticed that the aphis which she had been milking was in a position on the leaf which might expose it to observation of some inset t she immediately descended to the ground when she obtained a mouthful of earth and again up tl e daisy stalk built a tiny shed over the cow going back and torah several times to bring up sufficient material frach marshall white la pearson |