ANTS-THEIR LOVE OF CLEANEINESS AND MODES OF BURIAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2494, 7 January 1887, Page 2

ANTS-THEIR LOVE OF CLEANEINESS AND MODES OF BURIAL.

In spite of the multifarious duties and tasks that are imposed on these tiny burghers, they still find time to clean and adorn their worthy little persons. No spot, no atom of dust or anything else will they tolerate on their bodies. They get rid of the dirt with the bushy tufts on their feet or with their tongue. They act, for all the world, like domestic cats when they clean and lick themselves, and they assist one another at the toilet precisely like monkeys. .Their sense of cleanliness-goes so far that the naturalist often finds, to his surprise, the colored marks that he had applied with so much care on his 'trial ants' removed by their dirt eating friends. They keep their dwellings just as clean. But the conveying of their deceased brethren, whose dead bodies they appear to' regard with the greatest antipathy, gives them more trouble, than anything else, When some numbers of an,ant community, which Mr Cook kept imprisoned, died, and could not be removed, those remaining seemed affected with the greatest horror. For days the insects ran about seeking a way out, and ceased only when completely exhausted. The ants balonging to the Cciinponotus species seized the dead and threw them into a water pail, which they converted into a sepulchre. Ordinarily, though, the ants are said to treat their dead with more reverence. They even possess. their own graveyards, which lie in the vicinity, of the nests, They convey their deceased companions thither, where they lay them down in orderly little heops or rows. It is only • the corpses of their fellows, however, that they treat in this manner. Dead straiigors they throw : out like someunclean, or tear the body in pieces. Even between the master and slaves of the community Miss Treat says sheha3 observed, a dissimilar mode of burial. While the masters find ■ their, last repose in a special graveyard, side by side, ,the slaves lie like heaped-up. refuse .near the nest, detpised equally in death as in .life., The ant cemeteries are often thickly populated, for ; their life, is short. The male Jjyefl: gpLy "•through Qno.snmmer} the. females, live somewhat longer, a,nd the, workers die. of oldagftipw.eightyor tenth;year,