Solomon's Ants
A correspondent, who has been watching wood ants building one of their wooden nests, asks whether Solomon was wise and accurate as a natural historian. There is certainly no definite error, morally or biologically, in the famous passage : " Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." The ants are not like the bees in the depend- ence on an active queen, and their instincts seem rather
less precise and more adaptable than those of bees and wasps. They appear to work co-operatively ; and their food is very various. They " keep cows," that is, they milk aphids of their surplus sugar. They are fond of fruit, will indeed climb to the top of a tall pear in search of it. Their industry is of course persistent, though perhaps it does not equal in the sum of labour the work of a queen wasp when she wakes from hibernation. Numbers of ant problems are still unsolved. One precise secret is the use they make of the albino woodlouse which one often finds in the nest. Has anyone any plausible theory ?
Previous page
