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Show -xz-m-:-x-:-zox-:-x-:-x-:-xxx-;-x-:-x-mx-x-:-x-x-:-x-:-z-:-x-x-:-xx-:-x-:-x Mother Ants Employ Babies as Needles "A baby that you sew with, a baby that's needle and thread child labor with a vengeance, eh?" Tlie naturalist closed a book by a brother-naturalist, Glenwood Clark. "Gienwood Clark tells all about it here," he said. "The baby I refer to is an ant, not a human being. In the chrysalis or baby form this ant secretes se-cretes a silk, and with that silk its mother sews the leaves together to make the ant nest, using the baby Itself It-self as a needle, mind you. "The ant nest is built on a twig rather high up in a tree. The leaves that form it are held together by one group of ants, while another group mothers armed with iheir babies-does babies-does the sewing. "The hold their babies in their claws. They press the tiny heads against a .lace where two leaf-edges join. The heads deposit on the leaves their cobwebby silk, and then they are moved across the leaf joint, needle I fashion, back and forth, and as they , move they make a thread. i "In this manner, thanks to the needle-and-thread babies, the ants' nest is soon ready." 1 |