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In the honey-ants of Colorado and tropical America certain individuals pass their time suspended from the roof of a large nest-chamber, where they receive the sweet juice brought in by the workers. They serve as animated preserve jars, distended sometimes to the size of a grape with the communal stores of food, which they return to the workers when external sources of food may fail.
The temascals were also unusually well built of stone, and frequently were neatly covered with white plaster. Soon after leaving San Pedro, in the afternoon, we came upon two indian boys digging in the ground. Inquiring what they were doing, we learned that they were hunting honey-ants, and in a moment our whole party was engaged in the same operation.
There are signs, however, that the obtuse human conscience is awakening in this respect; for when Dr. Loew suggested to bee-keepers the desirability of testing the commercial value of honey-ants, as rivals to the bee, Dr. McCook replied that 'the sentiment against the use of honey thus taken from living insects, which is worthy of all respect, would not be easily overcome.
If they chose, they might only bury the front half of their late relation, while they retained his remaining moiety as an available honey-bag: but from this cannibal proceeding ant-etiquette recoils in decent horror; and the amber globes are 'pulled up galleries, rolled along rooms, and bowled into the graveyard, along with the juiceless heads, legs, and other members. Such fraternal conduct would be very creditable to the worker honey-ants, were it not for a horrid doubt insinuated by Dr.
All knowledge is stored in distended brains much as the honey-ants of Texas store honey in their distended abdomens. The lunar Somerset House and the lunar British Museum Library are collections of living brains... "The less specialised administrators, I note, do for the most part take a very lively interest in me whenever they encounter me.
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