THE ANT PEOPLE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5246, 2 March 1928, Page 4

THE ANT PEOPLE.

ALMOST HUMAN.

To be poking one’s nose into ant

nests in every land does not seem an

attractive occupation or >ast me, but

this looks very like what Dr. Hanns

Heinz Ewers has been doing for yearS'

Naturally he feels he has something

to say about ants that has never been said before, and he has the faculty for saying it in the most entertaining style for he is a novelist and' has written plays and books of travel. It is perhaps an additional recommendation that he has not only fought fire ants in Texas, but has been b’tten by bull ants in Australia. He is that rare thing, a naturalist with a keen sense of humour, and it seems a pleasure to him to explode many of our preconceived ideas about ants. He calls hi,s b°ok “ The Ant People.” and to make sure of getting our attention and keeping it he heads his first chapter, “The Wedding of the Ants.” Every line of the description gives a new thrill.

1 The ants select a ucky day and •hour for their wedd'ing, and are girded entirely by some special sense of wind and weather. Every ant is a meteorologist of the highest skill. Fpi days beforehand there is a visible restlessness. Excitement is intense. The workers appear to be bidding good-bye to those about 'to many. They pat them, fuss about them, feed them from their crops. When the happy moment comes the win'ged ants .rise into thd air, one pursuing the other, the males being generally in the lead. Each seizes another on what seems- the catch-as-catch-can principle, and the wedding may take place in the air or on the giound. After th’s life’s serious business begins- “ The males, brainless, without weapons or poison, incapable ever of feeding themselves,. soan die.” The females do not fare much better. Those that escape death by the onslaught of birds and insects and human beings begin to tear off their bridal finery, that, is, their wings, symbol of virginity. My lady’s pressing task is to build' a. refuge for' the ants yet unborn, so she digs in the earth, under a stone, or in the bark of a tree, and is careful to* stop, all openings. For months, perhaps a year, she works on and then begins to lay eggs. All that time she has kept the fertiliser- seek! in her little sac, and when the eggs are laid, she' licks, them, cleans them, helps the larvae to spin their coccoons, and attends to all the later developments. Some ants take out their young during warm nights just as human nurses and. governesses, do .with their children.in the parks. Some ants nurse their young at the breast with a sweet honey-dew milk. The maiden ants may be thought of as laughing at the idea of a husband being necessary in order that they may have children. Every female jnay have as many children-, as she desires. A worker is only half a female, and even she can have children. The rule in antdcm' is that from maiden eggs only males come, and no females, but even these clever people have not solved completely-the problem of parthenogenesis.

There are five thousand species of ants. They are useful to man by stirring up the soil and destroying enormous numbers of insects. It (has been estimated that a colony of ants, will take as mariy as a hundred thousand other inspects, to their nest in a single d'ay. In the tropics ants sometimes run into a human habitation, and even if it is filled with lice, fleas, or cockroaches not a trace will be left when, the ants have dope their work. They are equally effective with rats and mice. In China, Java, Italy, and America they are valued as enemies of orchard pests.

Their vitality is extraordinary. They have more lives than a cat. An American lady investigator froze some ants and kept them for 24 hours at 23 deg. Fahrenheit, thawed them out, and all survived; The starved ants and young queens survived for fifteen months without any fo.ofl whatever, and managed to rear their brood. She kept some under water for eight days and they survived. She cut off the head of an ant, and it lived for 21 ( days and ran about until two days before its death, Ants seem to be keen on conferences and c'jnventions, and assemble in the open or in .the nest and sit still and quiet for many hours at a time. They do not talk, not even by touching, one another , with their The hinder part of the body moves very slowly. What are they do ng ? Praying, worshipping, mediating ? No mortal man can tell us.

Among ants, as among men, a complete series of artistic • powers is found. There are:spinners, carpenters, paper makers, roofers,;hunters, agriculturists, bakers,' miners, herder's, coopers plasterers, mushroom growers' tapestry makers, gardeners, cutlers, nurses, governesses, sick nurses, soldiers, scouts, guards; there are also professional slaveholders, thieves, robbers, loafers. The list makes one hold his breath, but the wonder grows on hearing of ants that are doors or casks. Grain-gathering ants know how to prevent gain from sprouting. Ants have gardens in which they sow seeds, and leaf lice which they milk like cows. Terrific battles for slaves or territory are fought with the help of shock troops. The Amazo.ns catch hold of their enemy’s head, throat or breast and bore it through with their sickles. Each warrior carries home some booty, gives it at the city gateto a slave, and hurries back to the plundered city to get more booty. Most singularly, the warriors when at home seem to do nothing but beautify themselves, brushing, combing, anointing. They need no beauty parlours or massage to ipake them up ; every Amazon is an expert. They take care also to give “beauty” lessons to the little Amazons just out of their cocoons. On the other hand, they have spoils and games, and their wrestling and boxing matches, are

serious affairs, which sometimes end in wounding or killing. Having told us in a supremely fascinating way the unbelievable story of the ants, Dr. Ewers, like a true philosopher, cannot refrain from asking whether ants have souls. He thinks there is endless confusion when men begin to discuss instinct. Is this the same as reflex or intelligence, or some curious blend called plasticity. The different schools of sages irritate our author, and he is especially severe upon Forel. Dr. Ewers admits it is clear that ants do not possess the higher intelligence attained by man, and it is difficult to say whether they can make abstractions. “The chasm which separates the Amoeba primitive fr°m the ordinary business man is not nearly so deep and wide as that which parts this worthy from Dante.”

There are indications which lead us beyond mere instinct. An ant can explain to her friends a difficulty he has encountered, and secure her help. Thi is clone by a very highly developed feeler language, a kind of Morse system of telegraphing—short, long, short, dot, dash, dot dash. The ants are teachable and the memory is generally touch-odor pictures. Dr. Ewers says he has kept pigs with the Moivsts, and ploughed the hard soil with Darwin and Haeckel, but the soul is still an eternal puzzleThe Something which is tlte urge of all life is the same in the buttercup, as in the infusorium, in man as in the ant.