Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 8

ANSELME (Father Anselme of the Virgin Mary) (1625-1694), French genealogist, was born in Paris in 1625. As a layman his name was Pierre Guibours. He entered the order of the barefooted Augustinians on the 31st of March 1644, and it was in their monastery (called the Couvent des Pet.i.ts Peres, near the church of Notre-Dame des Victoires) that he died, on the 17th of January 1694. He devoted his entire life to genealogical studies. In 1663 he published _Le Palais de l'honneur_, which besides giving the genealogy of the houses of Lorraine and Savoy, is a complete treatise on heraldry, and in 1664 _Le Palais de la gloire_, dealing with the genealogy of various ill.u.s.trious French and European families. These books made friends for him, the most intimate among whom, Honore Caille, seigneur du Fourny (1630-1713), persuaded him to publish his _Histoire genealogique de la maison royale de France, et des grands officiers de la couronne_ (1674, 2 vols. 4); after Father Anselme's death, Honore Caille collected his papers, and brought out a new edition of this highly important work in 1712. The task was taken up and continued by two other friars of the Couvent des Pet.i.ts Peres, Father Ange de Sainte-Rosalie (Francois Raffard, 1655-1726), and Father Simplicien (Paul Lucas, 1683-1759), who published the first and second volumes of the third edition in 1726. This edition consists of nine volumes folio; it is a genealogical and chronological history of the royal house of France, of the peers, of the great officers of the crown and of the king's household, and of the ancient barons of the kingdom.

The notes were generally compiled from original doc.u.ments, references to which are usually given, so that they remain useful to the present day.

The work of Father Anselme, his collaborators and successors, is even more important for the history of France than is Dugdale's _Baronage of England_ for the history of England. (C. B.*)

ANSON, GEORGE ANSON, BARON (1697-1762), British admiral, was born on the 23rd of April 1697. He was the son of William Anson of Shugborough in Staffords.h.i.+re, and his wife Isabella Carrier, who was the sister-in-law of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, a relations.h.i.+p which proved very useful to the future admiral. George Anson entered the navy in February 1712, and by rapid steps became lieutenant in 1716, commander in 1722, and post-captain in 1724. In this rank he served twice on the North American station as captain of the "Scarborough" and the "Squirrel" from 1724 to 1730 and from 1733 to 1735. In 1737 he was appointed to the "Centurion,"

60, on the eve of war with Spain, and when hostilities had begun he was chosen to command as commodore the squadron which was sent to attack her possessions in South America in 1740. The original scheme was ambitious, and was not carried out. Anson's squadron, which sailed later than had been intended, and was very ill-fitted, consisted of six s.h.i.+ps, which were reduced by successive disasters to his flags.h.i.+p the "Centurion."

The lateness of the season forced him to round Cape Horn in very stormy weather, and the navigating instruments of the time did not allow of exact observation. Two of his vessels failed to round the Horn, another, the "Wager," was wrecked in the Golfo de Panas on the coast of Chile. By the time Anson reached the island of Juan Fernandez in June 1741, his six s.h.i.+ps had been reduced to three, while the strength of his crews had fallen from 961 to 335. In the absence of any effective Spanish force on the coast he was able to hara.s.s the enemy, and to capture the town of Paita on the 13th-15th of November 1741. The steady diminution of his crew by sickness, and the worn-out state of his remaining consorts, compelled him at last to collect all the survivors in the "Centurion."

He rested at the island of Tinian, and then made his way to Macao in November 1742. After considerable difficulties with the Chinese, he sailed again with his one remaining vessel to cruise for one of the richly laden galleons which conducted the trade between Mexico and the Philippines. The indomitable perseverance he had shown during one of the most arduous voyages in the history of sea adventure was rewarded by the capture of an immensely rich prize, the "Nuestra Senora de Covadonga,"

which was met off Cape Espiritu Santo on the 20th of June 1743. Anson took his prize back to Macao, sold her cargo to the Chinese, keeping the specie, and sailed for England, which he reached by the Cape of Good Hope on the 15th of June 1744. The prize-money earned by the capture of the galleon had made him a rich man for life, and under the influence of irritation caused by the refusal of the admiralty to confirm a captain's commission he had given to one of his officers, Anson refused the rank of rear-admiral, and was prepared to leave the service. His fame would stand nearly as high as it does if he had done so, but he would be a far less important figure in the history of the navy. By the world at large he is known as the commander of the voyage of circ.u.mnavigation, in which success was won by indomitable perseverance, unshaken firmness, and infinite resource. But he was also the severe and capable administrator who during years of hard work at the admiralty did more than any other to raise the navy from the state of corruption and indiscipline into which it had fallen during the first half of the eighteenth century. Great anger had been caused in the country by the condition of the fleet as revealed in the first part of the war with France and Spain, between 1739 and 1747. The need for reform was strongly felt, and the politicians of the day were conscious that it would not be safe to neglect the popular demand for it. In 1745 the duke of Bedford, the new first lord, invited Anson to join the admiralty with the rank of rear-admiral of the white. As subordinate under the duke, or Lord Sandwich, and as first lord himself, Anson was at the admiralty with one short break from 1745 till his death in 1762. His chiefs in the earlier years left him to take the initiative in all measures of reform, and supported him in their own interest. After 1751 he was himself first lord, except for a short time in 1756 and 1757. At his suggestion, or with his advice, the naval administration was thoroughly overhauled. The dockyards were brought into far better order, and though corruption was not banished, it was much reduced. The navy board was compelled to render accounts, a duty it had long neglected. A system of regulating promotion to flag rank, which has been in the main followed ever since, was introduced. The Navy Discipline Act was revised in 1749, and remained unaltered till 1865. Courts martial were put on a sound footing. Inspections of the fleet and the dockyards were established, and the corps of Marines was created in 1755. The progressive improvement which raised the navy to the high state of efficiency it attained in later years dates from Anson's presence at the admiralty. In 1747 he, without ceasing to be a member of the board, commanded the Channel fleet which on the 3rd of May scattered a large French convoy bound to the East, and West Indies, in an action off Cape Finisterre.

Several men-of-war and armed French Indiamen were taken, but the overwhelming superiority of Anson's fleet (fourteen men-of-war, to six men-of-war and four Indiamen) in the number and weight of s.h.i.+ps deprives the action of any strong claim to be considered remarkable. In society Anson seems to have been cold and taciturn. The sneers of Horace Walpole, and the savage attack of Smollett in _The Adventures of an Atom_, are animated by personal or political spite. Yet they would not have accused him of defects from which he was notoriously free. In political life he may sometimes have given too ready a.s.sent to the wishes of powerful politicians. He married the daughter of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke on the 27th of April 1748. There were no children of the marriage. His t.i.tle of Baron Anson of Soberton was given him in 1747, but became extinct on his death. The t.i.tle of Viscount Anson was, however, created in 1806 in favour of his great-nephew, the grandson of his sister Janetta and Mr Sambrook Adams, whose father had a.s.sumed the name and arms of Anson. The earldom of Lichfield was conferred on the family in the next generation. A fine portrait of the admiral by Reynolds is in the possession of the earl of Lichfield, and there are copies in the National Portrait Gallery and at Greenwich. Anson's promotions in flag rank were: rear-admiral in 1745, vice-admiral in 1746, and admiral in 1748. In 1749 he became vice-admiral of Great Britain, and in 1761 admiral of the fleet. He died on the 6th of June 1762.

A life of Lord Anson, inaccurate in some details but valuable and interesting, was published by Sir John Barrow in 1839. The standard account of his voyage round the world is that by his chaplain Richard Walter, 1748, often reprinted. A share in the work has been claimed on dubious grounds for Benjamin Robins, the mathematician. Another and much inferior account was published in 1745 by Pascoe Thomas, the schoolmaster of the "Centurion." (D. H.)

ANSON, SIR WILLIAM REYNELL, BART. (1843- ), English jurist, was born on the 14th of November 1843, at Walberton, Suss.e.x, son of the second baronet. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he took a first cla.s.s in the final cla.s.sical schools in 1866, and was elected to a fellows.h.i.+p of All Souls in the following year. In 1869 he was called to the bar, and went the home circuit until 1873, when he succeeded to the baronetcy. In 1874 he became Vinerian reader in English law at Oxford, a post which he held until he became, in 1881, warden of All Souls College. He identified himself both with local and university interests; he became an alderman of the city of Oxford in 1892, chairman of quarter sessions for the county in 1894, was vice-chancellor of the university in 1898-1899, and chancellor of the diocese of Oxford in 1899. In that year he was returned, without opposition, as M.P. for the university in the Liberal Unionist interest, and consequently resigned the vice-chancellors.h.i.+p. In parliament he preserved an active interest in education, being a member of the newly created consultative committee of the Board of Education in 1900, and in 1902 he became parliamentary secretary. He took an active part in the foundation of a school of law at Oxford, and his volumes on _The Principles of the English Law of Contract_, (1884, 11th ed. 1906), and on _The Law and Custom of the Const.i.tution_ in two parts, "The Parliament" and "The Crown" (1886-1892.

3rd ed. 1907, pt. i. vol. ii.), are standard works.

ANSONIA, a city of New Haven county, Connecticut, U.S.A., coextensive with the towns.h.i.+p of the same name, on the Naugatuck river, immediately N. of Derby and about 12 m. N.W. of New Haven. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines running N., S. and E. Pop. (1900) 12,681, of whom 4296 were foreign born; (1910 census) 13,152. Land area about 5.4 sq. m. The city has extensive manufactures of heavy machinery, electric supplies, bra.s.s and copper products and silk goods. In 1905 the capital invested in manufacturing was $7,625,864, and the value of the products was $19,132,455. Ansonia, Derby and Shelton form one of the most important industrial communities in the state. The city, settled in 1840 and named in honour of the merchant and philanthropist, Anson Green Phelps (1781-1853), was originally a part of the towns.h.i.+p of Derby; it was chartered as a borough in 1864 and as a city in 1893, when the towns.h.i.+p of Ansonia, which had been incorporated in 1889, and the city were consolidated.

ANSTED, DAVID THOMAS (1814-1880), English geologist, was born in London on the 5th of February 1814. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and after taking his degree of M.A. in 1839 was elected to a fellows.h.i.+p of the college. Inspired by the teachings of Adam Sedgwick, his attention was given to geology, and in 1840 he was elected professor of geology in King's College, London, a post which he held until 1853.

Meanwhile he became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1844, and from that date until 1847 he was vice-secretary of the Geological Society and edited its Quarterly Journal. The practical side of geology now came to occupy his chief attention, and he visited various parts of Europe and the British Islands as a consulting geologist and mining engineer. He was also in 1868 and for many years examiner in physical geography to the science and art department. He died at Melton near Woodbridge, on the 13th of May 1880.

PUBLICATIONS.--_Geology, Introductory, Descriptive and Practical_ (2 vols., 1844); _The Ionian Islands_ (1863); _The Applications of Geology to the Arts and Manufactures_ (1865); _Physical Geography_ (1867); _Water and Water Supply_ (Surface Water) (1878); and _The Channel Islands_ (with R.G. Latham) (1862).

ANSTEY, CHRISTOPHER (1724-1805), English poet, was the son of the rector of Brinkley, Cambridges.h.i.+re, where he was born on the 31st of October 1724. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for his Latin verses. He became a fellow of his college (1745); but the degree of M.A. was withheld from him, owing to the offence caused by a speech made by him beginning: "Doctores sine doctrina, magistri artium sine artibus, et baccalaurei baculo potius quam lauro digni." In 1754 he succeeded to the family estates and left Cambridge; and two years later he married the daughter of Felix Calvert of Albury Hall, Herts. For some time Anstey published nothing of any note, though he cultivated letters as well as his estates. Some visits to Bath, however, where later, in 1770, he made his permanent home, resulted in 1766 in his famous rhymed letters, _The New Bath Guide_ or _Memoirs of the B ... r ... d_ [_Blunderhead_] _Family_..., which had immediate success, and was enthusiastically praised for its original kind of humour by Walpole and Gray. The _Election Ball, in Poetical Letters from Mr Inkle at Bath to his Wife at Gloucester_ (1776) sustained the reputation won by the Guide. Anstey's other productions in verse and prose are now forgotten. He died on the 3rd of August 1805.

His _Poetical Works_ were collected in 1808 (2 vols.) by the author's son John (d. 1819), himself author of _The Pleader's Guide_ (1796), in the same vein with the _New Bath Guide_.

ANSTRUTHER (locally p.r.o.nounced _Anster_), a seaport of Fifes.h.i.+re, Scotland. It comprises the royal and police burghs of Anstruther Easter (pop. 1190), Anstruther Wester (501) and Kilrenny (2542), and lies 9 m.

S.S.E. of St Andrews, having a station on the North British railway company's branch line from Thornton Junction to St Andrews. The chief industries include coast and deep-sea fisheries, s.h.i.+pbuilding, tanning, the making of cod-liver oil and fish-curing. The harbour was completed in 1877 at a cost of 80,000. The two Anstruthers are divided only by a small stream called Dreel Burn. James Melville (1556-1614), nephew of the more celebrated reformer, Andrew Melville, who was minister of Kilrenny, has given in his _Diary_ a graphic account of the arrival at Anstruther of a weatherbound s.h.i.+p of the Armada, and the tradition of the intermixture of Spanish and Fifes.h.i.+re blood still prevails in the district. Anstruther fair supplied William Tennant (1784-1848), who was born and buried in the town, with the subject of his poem of "Anster Fair." Sir James Lumsden, a soldier of fortune under Gustavus Adolphus, who distinguished himself in the Thirty Years' War, was born in the parish of Kilrenny about 1598. David Martin (1737-1798), the painter and engraver; Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), the great divine; and John Goodsir (1814-1867), the anatomist, were natives of Anstruther. Little more than a mile to the west lies the royal and police burgh of Pittenweem (Gaelic, "the hollow of the cave"), a quaint old fis.h.i.+ng town (pop. 1863), with the remains of a priory. About 2 m. still farther westwards is the fis.h.i.+ng town of St Monans or Abercromby (pop. 1898), with a fine old Gothic church, picturesquely perched on the rocky sh.o.r.e.

These fisher towns on the eastern and south-eastern coasts of Fifes.h.i.+re furnish artists with endless subjects. Archibald Constable (1774-1827), Sir Walter Scott's publisher, was born in the parish of Carnbee, about 3 m. to the north of Pittenweem. The two Anstruthers, Kilrenny and Pittenweem unite with St Andrews, Cupar and Crail, in sending one member to parliament.

ANSWER (derived from _and_, against, and the same root as _swear_), originally a solemn a.s.sertion in opposition to some one or something, and thus generally any counter-statement or defence, a reply to a question or objection, or a correct solution of a problem. In English law, the "answer" in pleadings was, previous to the Judicature Acts 1873-1875, the statement of defence, especially as regards the facts and not the law. Its place is now taken by a "statement of defence."

"Answer" is the term still applied in divorce proceedings to the reply of the respondent (see PLEADING). The famous Latin _Responsa Prudentum_ ("answers of the learned") were the acc.u.mulated views of many successive generations of Roman lawyers, a body of legal opinion which gradually became authoritative. In music an "answer" is the technical name in counterpoint for the repet.i.tion by one part or instrument of a theme proposed by another.

ANT (O. Eng. _aemete_, from Teutonic a, privative, and _maitan_, cut or bite off, i.e. "the biter off"; _aemete_ in Middle English became differentiated in dialect use to _amete_, then _amte_, and so _ant_, and also to _emete_, whence the synonym "emmet," now only used provincially, "ant" being the general literary form). The fact that the name of the ant has come down in English from a thousand years ago shows that this cla.s.s of insects impressed the old inhabitants of England as they impressed the Hebrews and Greeks. The social instincts and industrious habits of ants have always made them favourite objects of study, and a vast amount of literature has acc.u.mulated on the subject of their structure and their modes of life.

_Characters._--An ant is easily recognized both by the casual observer and by the student of insects. Ants form a distinct and natural family (_Formicidae_) of the great order _Hymenoptera_, to which bees, wasps and sawflies also belong. The insects of this order have mandibles adapted for biting, and two pairs of membranous wings are usually present; the first abdominal segment (propodeum) becomes closely a.s.sociated with the fore-body (thorax), of which it appears to form a part. In all ants the second (apparently the first) abdominal segment is very markedly constricted at its front and hind edges, so that it forms a "node" at the base of the hind-body (fig. 1), and in many ants the third abdominal segment is similarly "nodular" in form (fig. 3, _b, c._). It is this peculiar "waist" that catches the eye of the observer, and makes the insects so easy of recognition. Another conspicuous and well-known feature of ants is the wingless condition of the "workers,"

as the specialized females, with undeveloped ovaries, which form the largest proportion of the population of ant-communities, are called.

Such "workers" are essential to the formation of a social community of Hymenoptera, and their wingless condition among the ants shows that their specialization has been carried further in this family than among the wasps and bees. Further, while among wasps and bees we find some solitary and some social genera, the ants as a family are social, though some aberrant species are dependent on the workers of other ants. It is interesting and suggestive that in a few families of digging Hymenoptera (such as the _Mutillidae_), allied to the ants, the females are wingless. The perfect female or "queen" ants (figs. 1, 1, 3, a) often cast their wings (fig. 3, b) after the nuptial flight; in a few species the females, and in still fewer the males, never develop wings. (For the so-called "white ants," which belong to an order far removed from the _Hymenoptera_, see TERMITE.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--Wood Ant (_Formica rufa_). 1, Queen; 2, male; 3, worker.]

_Structure._--The head of an ant carries a pair of elbowed feelers, each consisting of a minute basal and an elongate second segment, forming the stalk or "scape," while from eight to eleven short segments make up the terminal "flagellum." These segments are abundantly supplied with elongate tooth-like projections connected with nerve-endings probably olfactory in function. The brain is well developed and its "mushroom-bodies" are exceptionally large. The mandibles, which are frequently used for carrying various objects, are situated well to the outside of the maxillae, so that they can be opened and shut without interfering with the latter. The peculiar form and arrangement of the anterior abdominal segments have already been described. The fourth abdominal segment is often very large, and forms the greater part of the hind-body; this segment is markedly constricted at its basal (forward) end, where it is embraced by the small third segment. In many of those ants whose third abdominal segment forms a second "node," the basal dorsal region of the fourth segment is traversed by a large number of very fine transverse striations; over these the sharp hinder edge of the third segment can be sc.r.a.ped to and fro, and the result is a stridulating organ which gives rise to a note of very high pitch. For the appreciation of the sounds made by these stridulators, the ants are furnished with delicate organs of hearing (chordotonal organs) in the head, in the three thoracic and two of the abdominal segments and in the s.h.i.+ns of the legs.

The hinder abdominal segments and the stings of the queens and workers resemble those of other stinging Hymenoptera. But there are several subfamilies of ants whose females have the lancets of the sting useless for piercing, although the poison-glands are functional, their secretion being ejected by the insect, when occasion may arise, from the greatly enlarged reservoir, the reduced sting acting as a squirt.

_Nests._--The nests of different kinds of ants are constructed in very different situations; many species (_Lasius_, for example) make underground nests; galleries and chambers being hollowed out in the soil, and opening by small holes on the surface, or protected above by a large stone. The wood ant (_Formica rufa_, fig. 1) piles up a heap of leaves, twigs and other vegetable refuse, so arranged as to form an orderly series of galleries, though the structure appears at first sight a chaotic heap. Species of _Camponotus_ and many other ants tunnel in wood. In tropical countries ants sometimes make their nests in the hollow thorns of trees or on leaves; species with this habit are believed to make a return to the tree for the shelter that it affords by protecting it from the ravages of other insects, including their own leaf-cutting relations.

_Early Stages._--The larvae of ants (fig. 3, e) are legless and helpless maggots with very small heads (fig. 3, f), into whose mouths the requisite food has to be forced by the a.s.siduous "nurse" workers. The maggots are tended by these nurses with the greatest care, and carried to those parts of the nest most favourable for their health and growth.

When fully grown, the maggot spins an oval silken coc.o.o.n within which it pupates (fig. 3, g). These coc.o.o.ns, which may often be seen carried between the mandibles of the workers, are the "ants' eggs" prized as food for fish and pheasants. The workers of a Ceylonese ant (_Oecophylla smaragdina_) are stated by D. Sharp to hold the maggots between their mandibles and induce them to spin together the leaves of trees from which they form their shelters, as the adult ants have no silk-producing organs.

_Origin of Societies._--Ant-colonies are founded either by a single female or by several in a.s.sociation. The foundress of the nest lays eggs and at first feeds and rears the larvae, the earliest of which develop into workers. C. Janet observed that in a nest of _Lasius alienus_, established by a single female, the first workers emerged from their coc.o.o.ns on the 102nd day. These workers then take on themselves the labour of the colony, some collecting food, which they transfer to their comrades within the nest whose duty is to tend and feed the larvae. The foundress-queen is now waited on by the workers, who supply her with food and spare her all cares of work, so that henceforth she may devote her whole energies to egg-laying. The population of the colony increases fast, and a well-grown nest contains several "queens" and males, besides a large number of workers. One of the most interesting features of ant-societies is the dimorphism or polymorphism that may often be seen among the workers, the same species being represented by two or more forms. Thus the British "wood ant" (_Formica rufa_) has a smaller and a larger race of workers ("minor" and "major" forms), while in _Ponera_ we find a blind race of workers and another race provided with eyes, and in _Atta_, _Eciton_ and other genera, four or five forms of workers are produced, the largest of which, with huge heads and elongate trenchant mandibles, are known as the "soldier" caste. The development of such diversely-formed insects as the offspring of the unmodified females which show none of their peculiarities raises many points of difficulty for students in heredity. It is thought that the differences are, in part at least, due to differences in the nature of the food supplied to larvae, which are apparently all alike. But the ovaries of worker ants are in some cases sufficiently developed for the production of eggs, which may give rise parthenogenetically to male, queen or worker offspring.

_Food._--Different kinds of ants vary greatly in the substances which they use for food. Honey forms the staple nourishment of many ants, some of the workers seeking nectar from flowers, working it up into honey within their stomachs and regurgitating it so as to feed their comrades within the nest, who, in their turn, pa.s.s it on to the grubs. A curious specialization of certain workers in connexion with the transference of honey has been demonstrated by H.C. McCook in the American genus _Myrmecocystus_, and by later observers in Australian and African species of _Plagiolepis_ and allied genera. The workers in question remain within the nest, suspended by their feet, and serve as living honey-pots for the colony, becoming so distended by the supplies of honey poured into their mouths by their foraging comrades that their abdomens become sub-globular, the pale intersegmental membrane being tightly stretched between the widely-separated dark sclerites. The "nurse" workers in the nest can then draw their supplies from these "honey-pots." Very many ants live by preying upon various insects, such as the British "red ants" with well-developed stings (_Myrmica rubra_), and the notorious "driver ants" of Africa and America, the old-world species of which belong to _Dorylus_ and allied genera, and the new-world species to _Eciton_ (fig. 2, _2, 3_). In these ants the difference between the large, heavy, winged males and females, and the small, long-legged, active workers, is so great, that various forms of the same species have been often referred to distinct genera; in _Eciton_, for example, the female has a single petiolate abdominal segment, the worker two. The workers of these ants range over the country in large armies, killing and carrying off all the insects and spiders that they find and sometimes attacking vertebrates. They have been known to enter human dwellings, removing all the verminous insects contained therein. These driver ants shelter in temporary nests made in hollow trees or similar situations, where the insects may be seen, according to T. Belt, "cl.u.s.tered together in a dense ma.s.s like a great swarm of bees hanging from the roof."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.--Leaf-cutting and Foraging Ants. 1. _Atta cephalus_; 2. _Eciton drepanophora_; 3. _Eciton erratica_.]

The harvesting habits of certain ants have long been known, the subterranean store-houses of Mediterranean species of _Aphaenogaster_ having been described by J.T. Moggridge and A. Forel, and the complex industries of the Texan _Pogonomyrmex barbatus_ by H.C. McCook and W.M.

Wheeler. The colonies of _Aphaenogaster_ occupy nests extending over an area of fifty to a hundred square yards several feet below the surface of the ground. Into these underground chambers the ants carry seeds of gra.s.ses and other plants of which they acc.u.mulate large stores. The species of _Pogonomyrmex_ strip the husks from the seeds and carry them out of the nest, making a refuse heap near the entrance. The seeds are harvested from various gra.s.ses, especially from _Aristida oligantha_, a species known as "ant rice," which often grows in quant.i.ty close to the site selected for the nest, but the statement that the ants deliberately sow this gra.s.s is an error, due, according to Wheeler, to the sprouting of germinating seeds which the ants have turned out of their store-chambers.

Perhaps no ants have such remarkable habits as those of the genus _Atta_,--the leaf-cutting ants of tropical America (fig. 2, 1). There are several forms of worker in these species, some with enormous heads, which remain in the underground nests, while their smaller comrades scour the country in search of suitable trees, which they ascend, biting off small circular pieces from the leaves, and carrying them off to the nests. Their labour often results in the complete defoliation of the tree. The tracks along which the ants carry the leaves to their nests are often in part subterranean. H.C. McCook describes an almost straight tunnel, nearly 450 ft. long, made by _Atta fervens_.

Within the nest, the leaves are cut into very minute fragments and gathered into small spherical heaps forming a spongy ma.s.s, which--according to the researches of A. Moller--serves as the substratum for a special fungus (_Rozites gongylophora_), the staple food of the ants. The insects cultivate their fungus, weeding out mould and bacterial growths, and causing the appearance, on the surface of their "mushroom garden," of numerous small white bodies formed by swollen ends of the fungus hyphae. When the fungus is grown elsewhere than in the ants' nest it produces gonidia instead of the white ma.s.ses on which the ants feed, hence it seems that these ma.s.ses are indeed produced as the result of some unknown cultural process. Other genera of South American ants--_Apterostigma_ and _Cyphomyrmex_--make similar fungal cultivations, but they use wood, grain or dung as the substratum instead of leaf fragments. Each kind of ant is so addicted to its own particular fungal food that it refuses disdainfully, even when hungry, the produce of an alien nest.

_Guests of Ants._--Many ants feed largely and some almost entirely on the saccharine secretions of other insects, the best known of which are the Aphides (plant-lice or "green-fly"). This consideration leads us to one of the most remarkable and fascinating features of ant-communities--the presence in the nests of insects and other small arthropods, which are tended and cared for by the ants as their "guests," rendering to the ants in return the sweet food which they desire. The relation between ants and aphids has often been compared to that between men and milch cattle. Sir J. Lubbock (Lord Avebury) states that the common British yellow ants (_Lasius flavus_) collect flocks of root-feeding aphids in their underground nests, protect them, build earthen shelters over them, and take the greatest care of their eggs. Other ants, such as the British black garden species (_L. niger_), go after the aphids that frequent the shoots of plants. Many species of aphid migrate from one plant to another at certain stages in their life-cycle when their numbers have very largely increased, and F.M. Webster has observed ants, foreseeing this emigration, to carry aphids from apple trees to gra.s.ses. It has been shown by M. Busgen that the sweet secretion (honey-dew) of the aphids is not derived, as generally believed, from the paired cornicles on the fifth abdominal segment, but from the intestine, whence it exudes in drops and is swallowed by the ants.

Besides the aphids, other insects, such as scale insects (_Coccidae_), caterpillars of blue b.u.t.terflies (_Lycaenidae_), and numerous beetles, furnish the ants with nutrient secretions. The number of species of beetles that inhabit ants' nests is almost incredibly large, and most of these are never found elsewhere, being blind, helpless and dependent on the ants' care for protection and food; these beetles belong for the most part to the families _Pselaphidae, Paussidae_ and _Staphylinidae_.

Spring-tails and bristle-tails (order _Aptera_) of several species also frequent ants' nests. While some of these "guest" insects produce secretions that furnish the ants with food, some seem to be useless inmates of the nest, obtaining food from the ants and giving nothing in return. Others again play the part of thieves in the ant society; C.

Janet observed a small bristle-tail (_Lepismima_) to lurk beneath the heads of two Lasius workers, while one pa.s.sed food to the other, in order to steal the drop of nourishment and to make off with it. The same naturalist describes the a.s.sociation with Lasius of small mites (_Antennophorus_) which are carried about by the worker ants, one of which may have a mite beneath her mouth, and another on either side of her abdomen. On patting their carrier or some pa.s.sing ant, the mites are supplied with food, no service being rendered by them in return for the ants' care. Perhaps the ants derive from these seemingly useless guests the same satisfaction as we obtain by keeping pet animals. Recent advance in our knowledge of the guests and a.s.sociates of ants is due princ.i.p.ally to E. Wasmann, who has compiled a list of nearly 1500 species of insects, arachnids and crustaceans, inhabiting ants' nests.

The warmth, shelter and abundant food in the nests, due both to the fresh supplies brought in by the ants and to the large amount of waste matter that acc.u.mulates, must prove strongly attractive to the various "guests." Some of the inmates of ants' nests are here for the purpose of preying upon the ants or their larvae, so that we find all kinds of relations between the owners of the nests and their companions, from mutual benefit to active hostility.

Among these a.s.sociations or guests other species of ants are not wanting. For example, a minute species (_Solenopsis fugax_) lives in a compound nest with various species of _Formica_, forming narrow galleries which open into the larger galleries of its host. The _Solenopsis_ can make its way into the territory of the _Formica_ to steal the larvae which serve it as food, but the _Formica_ is too large to pursue the thief when it returns to its own galleries.

_Slaves._--Several species of ants are found in a.s.sociation with another species which stands to them in the relation of slave to master.

_Formica sanguinea_ is a well-known European slave-making ant that inhabits England; its workers raid the nests of _F. fusca_ and other species, and carry off to their own nests pupae from which workers are developed that live contentedly as slaves of their captors. _F.

sanguinea_ can live either with or without slaves, but another European ant (_Polyergus rufescens_) is so dependent on its slaves--various species of _Formica_--that its workers are themselves unable to feed the larvae. The remarkable genus _Anergates_ has no workers, and its wingless males and females are served by communities of _Tetramorium cespitum_ (fig. 3).