With These They Can Shear Off The
Legs Or Even The Head Of Another Ant In Battle.
I cannot see, therefore,
why, if they wished, they could not nip off this fringe of hairs, or even
sever the stem of the plant.
Evidently they do not wish, and possibly
they have reasons for avoiding some plants and flowers, which besides
honey may contain spores - just as they certainly contain certain larvae,
which attach themselves to the bodies of bees.
Possibly we may yet use the ants or some other clever insects to find out
the origin of the fatal parasite which devours the consumptive. Some
reason exists for imagining that this parasite has something to do with
the flora, for phthisis ceases at a certain altitude, and it is very well
known that the floras have a marked line of demarcation. Up to a certain
height certain flowers will grow, but not beyond, just as if you had run
a separating ditch round the mountain. With the flora the insects cease;
whether the germ comes from the vegetation or from the insect that
frequents the vegetation does not seem known. Still it would be worth
while to make a careful examination of the plant and insect life just at
the verge of the line of division. The bacillus may spring from a spore
starting from a plant or starting from an insect. Most of England had an
Alpine climate probably once, and some Alpine plants and animals have
been stranded on the tops of our highest hills and remain there to this
day. In those icy times English lungs were probably free of disease. Has
formic acid ever been used for experiments on bacilli? It is the ant
acid; they are full of it, and it is extracted and used for some purposes
abroad. Perhaps its strong odour is repellent to parasites. To return:
while the honey-bees live in comparative safety, the more or less
solitary wild bees have a great struggle to repel various creatures that
would eat them or their young, and, be as watchful as they may, all their
efforts at nest-building are often rendered nugatory by the success of a
parasite. So it is not worth while to catch them just for the purpose of
identification, for they have enough enemies in the field without man and
his heartless cabinets. The collector is the most terrible parasite of
all. Let them go on with a happy hum, while the tulip opens in the
sunshine.
THE TIME OF YEAR.
The Emperor moth came out on the 2nd of April, and suddenly filled the
cardboard box like the noonday phantom in the sunshine, so unexpected and
wonderful. His wings, which as he rests are spread open, stretched from
one side of the box to the other, hovering over his old home, a beautiful
grey tipped with pink, and peacock-eyed, ring within ring. He clung to
the piece of heather upon which the caterpillar was found seven months
before, and which he had fixed in the threads of his cocoon.
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