Part 11 (1/2)
THE ANT WHO DIDN'T KNOW HIS TRADE
As you may suppose, this is real architectural engineering and no place for amateurs. I once saw a foolish worker starting a roof from the top of one of the side walls without paying any attention to the fact that the other wall was much higher. The result was he struck the middle of it, instead of joining it at the top. Another ant pa.s.sing, possibly the supervising architect, saw what was going to happen. So what does he do but stop and tear down the other's work and build the ceiling over again!
”There! _That's_ the way to put in a ceiling,” he seemed to say. ”For goodness sake, where _did_ you learn your trade?”
Huber, the famous student of ants, saw two of these wonderful insects do the very same thing.
Sometimes the situation is such that it is necessary to build a very wide ceiling, so wide that it would fall of its own weight unless supported in some way. Then what would you do; that is, if _you_ were an ant?
”Why, I'd put up pillars to hold it.”
That's exactly what the ants do; they put up pillars; but instead of using steel beams, as men do in this day of steel, the ant architects make pillars of clay--build them up with pellets, little clay bricks which they shape with their mandibles--their jaws.
But the ants seem to have some of the methods of steel construction, too; the use of girders and things. Ebrard, a French student of ants, tells how, when a certain roof threatened to fall, some Sir Christopher Wren of the ant world used a blade of gra.s.s as a girder, just as Sir Christopher in his day put in girders to support the roof of Saint Paul's Cathedral, and as men use steel girders to-day. The ant fastened a little ma.s.s of earth on the end of a gra.s.s stalk growing near to bend it over; then gnawed it a little at the bottom to make it bend still more, and finally fixed it with mud pellets into the roof.
But here's something that will make you smile! You have heard about the lazy man down in Arkansas with the hole in his roof? You remember he never mended it in dry weather because it didn't need it, and when it rained he _couldn't_ mend it on account of the rain!
RAINY-DAY WORK IN THE ANT WORLD
Well, these _Formica fusca_ folks are as different from that Arkansas man as anything you could imagine. First of all, being ants, they are anything but lazy; secondly, they never put off needed work on their roofs on account of rain. In fact, they _choose_ the first wet day to do it. As soon as the rain begins they build up a thick terrace on the roof of the old dwelling, carrying in their jaws little piles of finely ground earth which they spread out with their hind legs. Then, by hollowing out this roof, they turn it into a new story. Last of all they put on the ceiling. You see the rain helps them in mixing their clay.
There are ants that build up vaulted viaducts or covered ways, and they use clay for that.[13] They make the clay by mixing earth with saliva.
Some of these viaducts reach out from the house--the ants' house--to their ”cow” pasture.
[13] The scientific name for this particular kind of ant is _Lasius niger_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ANT CARRYING ONE OF HER COWS]
You know about how ants keep cows, little bugs called aphids? The aphids feed on plants, and the clay viaducts protect the ants from their enemies and from the sun in going to and from the pasture; for this particular family of ants doesn't like the sun. They make clay sheds for their cattle, too. Here and there along the clay viaduct are large roomy s.p.a.ces, cow-sheds, so to speak--where the little honey cows gather when they aren't feeding. Another kind of ant builds earth huts around its cow pastures. The large red ants (_F. rufa_), sometimes called ”horse ants,” build hills as large as small hayc.o.c.ks.
II. THE TERMITES AND THEIR TOWERS OF BABEL
But speaking of big buildings, did you ever hear of a skysc.r.a.per a mile high? Well the home of the six-footed farmer I am going to tell you about now is as much taller than he is as a mile-high skysc.r.a.per would be taller than a man. The remarkable little creatures that build these skysc.r.a.pers are called ”termites.” Termites are also known as ”white ants.” This seems funny when we know that they are neither ”ants” nor are they white. The young of the workers are white, to be sure, but the grown-ups are of various colors, and never milky white as they are when young. The termites were first called ”white ants” in books of travel because the termites the travellers saw were the young people.
HOW TERMITES ARE LIKE THE ANTS
The termites are really closer relatives of dragon-flies, c.o.c.kroaches, and crickets than of the ants, but they do look a great deal like an ant, and they have many of the ways of the ants. As in the case of ants, all the members of one community are the children of one queen. The king lives with the queen in a private apartment. Sometimes--as with human royalties--the king and queen will have separate residences, but the termite royalties always live in the same house with their people; they are very democratic.
Some kinds of termites live in rotten trees, which they tunnel into, and that is their contribution to soil-making; while others build great, big solid houses of earth and fibres, mixed. These houses are called ”termitariums,” and are six, eight, ten, even twenty-five feet high; fully 1,000 times the length of the worker. Think of a man five feet high, and then multiply by 1,000, and you see you have got nearly a mile!
[Ill.u.s.tration: SKYSc.r.a.pERS A MILE HIGH
”Some kinds of termites build great, solid houses of earth and fibres mixed. These houses are six, eight, ten, even twenty-five feet high, fully one thousand times the length of the worker. Think of a man five feet high and then multiply by one thousand, and you see you have got nearly a mile.”]
These termite skysc.r.a.pers aren't much to look at on the outside, but inside they're just fine; they have everything the most particular ant could want. For instance, the termites are right up-to-date in their ideas about fresh air, their houses being well ventilated through windows left in the walls for that purpose. You can see the importance of this fresh-air system when you know there are thousands of termites under the same roof. They also have a sewage system for carrying off the water of the rains. And a fine piece of mechanical engineering the building of it is, too; for these ”water-pipes” are the underground pa.s.sages hollowed out in getting the clay to build the homes. The termites build their homes with one hand and dig the sewer with the other, so to speak.
THE THERMOSTATS FOR THE NURSERIES
The termitarium has as many rooms in it as a big hotel--oh, I don't know _how_ many--and they are all built around the chambers of the king and queen. Next to the royal apartments are the pantries, a lot of them, and they are all stored with food. In the upper part of the termitarium are the nurseries--many nurseries--for no one nursery could care for any such numbers of babies as the queen has. Between the nursery and the roof is an air-s.p.a.ce, and there are also air-s.p.a.ces on the sides and beneath. The nursery thus being surrounded by air, the eggs and, when they come along, the babies are protected from changes of temperature.