Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1902 — "GO TO THE ANT." [ARTICLE]

"GO TO THE ANT."

Am* Learn of Bor How to Be an Ideal ’ _ ' Socialist. "It now being past noon and Formica’s thoughts turning to refreshments, she hied herself to the outskirts of thenest, where the family cows were pastured. These cows, or aphides, were feeding on the leaves of-the daisy, into which they plunge their proboscides and suck all day long, filling their bodies with pleasant juices. Our ant came up behind an aphis and stroked it gently with her antennae, when the little creature gave out a drop of her sweet liquid, which Formica sucked into her own crop. There were thousands of these aphides pasturing on the leaves and thousands of ants milking them. Most of the ants took more 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 saving the others’ time and enabling them to resume their occupation more quickly. The ants were making the most of the aphis juice 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 ants would store over winter, tending them with the utmost care until spring, when the young aphides are brought out and placed on the shoots of the daisy to mature and provide food again during the hot weather. This far-sightedness is unexampled in the animal kingdom. Other insects and animals put away stores for the winter, to be sure, but the ant is the only one of them that breeds its own food supply. Having taken 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 aphidivorous insect. She Immediately descended to the ground, when she obtained a mouthful 'of earth, and, again climbing up the daisy stalk, built a tiny shed over the cow, going back and forth several times to bring up sufficient material.”—Frank Marshall White in Pearson’s.