Word: ants
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...Natural Sciences in Philadelphia last week presented its Leidy Medal to Dr. William Morton Wheeler, internationally famed zoologist, longtime Dean of the Bussey Institution for Research in Applied Biology at Harvard, he replied with a lecture on the subject in which he had been doing medal-worthy work: ants and their queens. Some of his more curious ant facts...
There is an ant queen who has a pocket in her head and combs on her feet. After her travels through dirt, she combs her body for earth with which to grow a garden of fungus in her pocket. When she has found a crevice in which to set up housekeeping, she deposits the garden beside her, fertilizes it by breaking some of her own eggs. When the rest of the eggs hatch into worker-ants, they assume the task of tending the garden...
There is an ant queen of another species who, contemplating a nuptial flight, assembles a horde of worker-ants around her, carries them around on her strong legs to care for the children when they shall be born. The children are so numerous and tiny she cannot tend them herself...
This honor was awarded in recognition of Dr. Wheeler's outstanding work in the study of insects all over the world, and particularly for his studies of the habits and psychology of the ant group. The Harvard entomologist is the author of "Social Life Among the Insects." In April the bronze medal and honorarium will be presented at the Academy...
Myrmecology sets Mystic Maeterlinck musing; he thinks the ant may be an example, not only to the sluggard, but to the whole race. "One day we shall learn, as all the creatures that share this earth with us have already learned, to content ourselves with life . . . and we shall find, perhaps, when we know how to live it, that life is enough. ... I believe that the ant is far less unhappy than the very happiest...