Country Life
BY IAN NIALL THERE is a great fascination in the behaviour of ants. I had just come into the garden after reading about their communal existence when I discovered that the day of the flying ants had come around again. Once a year the black ants that live. in the limestone wall of our garden, encouraged by a suitable interval of warmth and sunlight, emerge and swarm all over the stones. The winged specimens take the air at intervals while the workers swarm endlessly and aimlessly. Even the winged ones seem at first uncertain of their intentions and run here and there for a time, but at length, one after another, they sail off into the warm air, like the windborne seeds of some small Plant. The odd thing about this swarming is that it seems to be going on all over the district at the same moment. 'Oh, these ants!' com- Plained arilgld lady I met as she brushed the air with het hand. 'The Bible says they go to the water to feed the fishes. I wish they would !' This may be so, but winged ants are a sore trial to some people. Fortunately these flights are brief and infrequent and the ants quickly return to their more humdrum life on and in the ground.
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