HUMAN METHODS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 355, 9 February 1937, Page 3

HUMAN METHODS.

THE ANT AND ITS WAYS. ADVICE OF KING SOLOMON. Among the good advice which incessantly hits us human beings like so many lump sof rock is Die dictum of Solonian, who said: “Go to tile ant, thou sluggard.” Solomon ought to have had some sense, with all lliose mothersrin-luw to keep him in order, and as his remark seeined to be addressed to me personally, 1 went, writes Robert | Magill in the Sunday Pictorial. Many fampus authors besides myself have at some time of another ) turned a dishonest penny by writing about the ant; so much so that in addition to the notice on the gate which reads, “Post no bills, they have added another, “No more ants wanted.” But, unlike them, 1 have come to the conclusion that the ant lias really got I nothing to be so stuck up about. For an hour or so 1 watched some ants. True, it was easier than pulling I up weeds, which my wife thought 1 was doing, but it was depressing These creatures were dashing about after each other from one hole in the | garden path to another, all carrying so i many useless pieces of rubbish that j they seemed to have been bidding at | an aucLon sale. Occasionally one ant met another, hu they rubb'ed feelers, like two men | shaking hands. Then one obviously • told the other that she knew a place where they'd Just opened a fresh barrel, and they went off to have one. They do this sort of thing better than we do. Certain ants Illi themselves with honey and hang upside down by their feet like s’ot machines where the thirsty ones can always get a drink for nothing. The Policeman. Unfortunately a much larger ant with very big pincers, who was acting as a cross between a foreman and a traffic cup, saw them go. He did not trouble to take their names and addresses. He bit them.

He bit one so hard that he bit his head oil, but that ant had no more use for a head than a politician has. He shook himself and went into the proper lobby like an M.P. alter an nterview with the Whip. When 1 say “he” 1 really mean “she,” for the ant we know is really an undeveloped female who does all the work, like the typist. This is one improvement the ants have made uu our soical system. The real female, the queen, unlike our own modern women, grows wings and is very flighty before marriage. After that ce.emoiiy she leaves the shrivelled-up carcase of her deceased husband, bites off her own wings, ami settles down to domesticity, whereas our own wives no sooner get the wedding ring on than they learn to drive a small car, till it with golf clubs, and go out to see life. The lady ant then lays eggs at the cate of 60 a minute. 1 told our lien that, and she asked for her union ticket back on the spot. But the ant doesn’t raise her own family, because the ants have solved the servant problem.

When they need a few new nursemaids they never advertise for a clergyman’s daughter as a lady-help. They attack the i.est next door, carrying off some selected females as though raiding an orphanage,, and bring them up in the way they should j go—not to snuffle, and never answer I back. What is still more wonderful, | they clothe and unclothe the baby ! ants without ever using a safety pin. |

T military Caste. The policemen ants are really soldiers who form a separate military caste, and the others feed them and tell them’ when to come in out of the rain. In return, they will fight anything from an influenza £rrni to a crocodile, and to keep in practice a couple of them will often get down on .the mat together, pulling each other to pieces as contentedly as a pair of all-in wrestlers. The only way they are superior to our own soldiers is that they never tpend their puy on the ant nursemaids, because they don’t get any pay. But ants will eat anything/ They lell that the termites, or white ants, will consume a wnuie siuri, excepting the buttons. My laundry j.ust beats this, it demolishes the buttons as well. What I object to In the anti as a moral lesson is that he is not only a fool but a fraud. He works hard, but then his wife is a thousand limes as big as lie is, so that he lias to. You may remember that sanctimonious insect in Aesop 1 who was so rude to the grasshopper with the artistic temperament who danced all the summer. Maybe the grasshopper did have to find a job as a gigolo, but what did , the ant dj? According to the best ' authoirties he simply went to sleep. Consider an ant who has an appointment which necessitates his going from some place to some other place. Does he consult a map or ask about buses? No, he goes straight to it. If St. Paul’s Cathedral happens to be in the way he crawls over it, and then drowns himself in the Thames. 1 ex- ! pect that if I did that tiiey wouldn’t I miss me very much at the office, but I’m thinking about me, not them. The ant can carry 12 tjmes his own weight; and the idiot does. If I felt ' like that I should keep it to myself, I especially when I was out shopping i ! with my wife.