Journeys Through Bookland Volume Vii Part 30

The bull's-horn thorn does not grow at the mines in the forest, nor are the small ants attending on them found there. They seem specially adapted for the tree, and I have seen them nowhere else. Besides the little ants, I found another ant that lives on these acacias, whose habits appear to be rather different. It makes the holes of entrance to the thorns near the centre of one of each pair, and not near the end, and it is not so active as the other species. It is also rather scarce; but when it does occur, it occupies the whole tree, to the exclusion of the other. The glands on the acacia are also frequented by a small species of wasp. I sowed the seeds of the acacia in my garden, and reared some young plants. Ants of many kinds were numerous; but none of them took to the thorns for shelter, nor the glands and fruit-like bodies for food; for, as I have already mentioned, the species that attend on the thorns are not found in the forest. The leaf-cutting ants attacked the young plants, and defoliated them; but I have never seen any of the trees out on the savannahs that are guarded touched by them, and have no doubt the acacia is protected from them by its little warriors. The thorns, when they are first developed, are soft, and filled with a sweetish, pulpy substance; so that the ant, when it makes an entrance into them, finds its new house full of food. It hollows this out, leaving only the hardened sh.e.l.l of the thorn. Strange to say, this treatment seems to favor the development of the thorn, as it increases in size, bulging out toward the base; whilst in my plants that were not touched by the ants, the thorns turned yellow and dried up into dead but persistent p.r.i.c.kles. I am not sure, however, that this may not have been due to the habitat of the plant not suiting it.

These ants seem to lead the happiest of existences. Protected by their stings, they fear no foe. Habitations full of food are provided for them to commence housekeeping with; and cups of nectar and luscious fruits await them every day. But there is a reverse to the picture. In the dry season on the plains, the acacias cease to grow. No young leaves are produced, and the old glands do not secrete honey. Then want and hunger overtake the ants that have reveled in luxury all the wet season; many of the thorns are depopulated, and only a few ants live through the season of scarcity. As soon, however, as the first rains set in, the trees throw out numerous vigorous shoots, and the ants multiply again with astonishing rapidity.

Both in Brazil and in Nicaragua I paid much attention to the relation between the presence of honey-secreting glands on plants, and the protection the latter secured by the attendance of ants attracted by the honey. I found many plants so protected; the glands being specially developed on the young leaves, and on the sepals of the flowers. Besides the bull's-horn acacias, I, however, only met with two other genera of plants that furnished the ants with houses, namely, the trumpet tree and some of the evergreen shrubs; but I have no doubt that there are many others. The stem of the Cecropia, or trumpet tree, is hollow, and divided into cells by part.i.tions that extend across the interior of the hollow trunk. The ants gain access by making a hole from the outside, and then burrow through the part.i.tions, thus getting the run of the whole stem. They do not obtain their food directly from the tree, but keep brown scale insects in the cells, which suck the juices from the tree, and secrete a honey-like fluid that exudes from a pore on the back, and is lapped up by the ants. In one cell eggs will be found, in another grubs, and in a third pupae, all lying loosely. In another cell, by itself, a queen ant will be found, surrounded by walls made of a brown waxy-looking substance, along with about a dozen scale insects to supply her with food. I suppose the eggs are removed as soon as laid, for I never found any along with the queen ant. If the tree be shaken, the ants rush out in myriads, and search about for the molester. This case is not like the last one, where the tree has provided food and shelter for the ants, but rather one where the ant has taken possession of the tree, and brought with it the scale insects; but I believe that its presence must be beneficial. I have cut into some dozens of the trumpet trees, and never could find one that was not tenanted by ants. I noticed three different species, all, as far as I know, confined to the trumpet tree, and all farming scale insects. As in the bull's-horn thorn, there is never more than one species of ant on the same tree.

In some species of evergreen shrub there is a direct provision of houses for the ants. In each leaf, at the base of the laminae, the petiole, or stalk, is furnished with a couple of pouches, divided from each other by the midrib. Into each of these pouches there is an entrance from the lower side of the leaf. I noticed them first in Northern Brazil, in the province of Maranham; and afterwards at Para. Every pouch was occupied by a nest of small black ants; and if the leaf was shaken ever so little, they would rush out and scour all over it in search of the aggressor. I must have tested some hundreds of leaves, and never shook one without the ants coming out, excepting one sickly-looking plant at Para. In many of the pouches I noticed the eggs and young ants, and in some I saw a few dark-colored scale insects or plant lice; but my attention had not been at that time directed to the latter as supplying the ants with food, and I did not examine a sufficient number of pouches to determine whether they were constant occupants of the nests or not; but my experience since with the trumpet trees would lead me to expect that they were. If so, we have an instance of two insects and a plant living together, and all benefited by the companionship. The leaves of the plant are guarded by the ants; the ants are provided with houses by the plant, and food by the scale insects and plant lice; and the latter are effectually protected by the ants in their common habitation.

Amongst the numerous plants that do not provide houses, but attract ants to their leaves and flower buds by means of glands secreting a honey-like liquid, are many orchids, and I think all the species of pa.s.sion flowers. I had the common red pa.s.sion flower growing over the front on my verandah, where it was continually under my notice. It had honey-secreting glands on its young leaves and on the sepals of the flower buds. For two years I noticed that the glands were constantly attended by a small ant, and, night and day, every young leaf and every flower bud had a few on them. They did not sting, but attacked and bit my finger when I touched the plant. I have no doubt that the primary object of these honey-glands was to attract the ants, and keep them about the most tender and vulnerable parts of the plant, to prevent them being injured; and I further believe that one of the princ.i.p.al enemies that they serve to guard against in tropical America is the leaf-cutting ant, as I have noticed that the latter are very much afraid of the small black ants.

On the third year after I had noticed the attendance of the ants on my pa.s.sion flower, I found that the glands were not so well looked after as before, and soon discovered that a number of scale insects had established themselves on the stems, and that the ants had in a great measure transferred their attentions to them. An ant would stand over a scale insect and stroke it alternately on each side with its antennas, whereupon every now and then a clear drop of honey would exude from a pore on the back of the scale insect and be imbibed by the ant. Here it was clear that the scale insect was competing successfully with the leaves and sepals for the attendance and protection of the ants, and was successful either through the fluid it furnished being more attractive or more abundant. I have, from these facts, been led to the conclusion that the use of honey-secreting glands in plants is to attract insects that will protect the flower buds and leaves from being injured by herbivorous insects and mammals; but I do not mean to infer that this is the use of all glands, for many of the small appendicular bodies, called "glands" by botanists, do not secrete honey. The common dog-rose of England is furnished with glands on the stipules, and in other species they are more numerous, until in the wild rose of the northern counties the leaves are thickly edged, and the fruit and sepals covered with stalked glands. I have only observed the wild roses in the north of England, but there I have never seen insects attending the glands. These glands, however, do not secrete honey; but a dark, resinous, sticky liquid, that probably is useful by being distasteful to both insects and mammals.

FOOTNOTES:

[306-1] From _The Naturalist in Nicaragua_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT[314-1]

_From the French of_ EMILE SOUVESTRE

_September 15th, Eight O'clock._--This morning, while I was arranging my books, Mother Genevieve came in and brought me the basket of fruit I buy of her every Sunday. For nearly twenty years that I have lived in this quarter I have dealt in her little fruit shop. Perhaps I should be better served elsewhere, but Mother Genevieve has but little custom; to leave her would do her harm and cause her unnecessary pain. It seems to me that the length of our acquaintance has made me incur a sort of tacit obligation to her; my patronage has become her property.

She has put the basket upon my table, and as I wanted her husband, who is a joiner, to add some shelves to my bookcase, she has gone downstairs again immediately to send him to me.

At first I did not notice either her looks or the sound of her voice; but, now that I recall them, it seems to me that she was not as jovial as usual. Can Mother Genevieve be in trouble about anything?

Poor woman! All her best years were subject to such bitter trials that she might think she had received her full share already. Were I to live a hundred years I should never forget the circ.u.mstances which first made her known to me and which obtained her my respect.

It was at the time of my first settling in the faubourg. I had noticed her empty fruit shop, which n.o.body came into, and being attracted by its forsaken appearance I made my little purchases in it. I have always instinctively preferred the poor shops; there is less choice in them, but it seems to me that my purchase is a sign of sympathy with a brother in poverty. These little dealings are almost always an anchor of hope to those whose very existence is in peril--the only means by which some orphan gains a livelihood. There the aim of the tradesman is not to enrich himself, but to live! The purchase you make of him is more than an exchange--it is a good action.

Mother Genevieve at that time was still young, but had already lost that fresh bloom of youth which suffering causes to wither so soon among the poor. Her husband, a clever joiner, gradually left off working to become, according to the picturesque expression of the workshops, "a worshipper of Saint Monday." The wages of the week, which was always reduced to two or three working days, were completely dedicated by him to the worship of this G.o.d of the Barriers,[315-2] and Genevieve was obliged herself to provide for all the wants of the household.

One evening, when I went to make some trifling purchases of her, I heard a sound of quarreling in the back shop. There were the voices of several women, among which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by sobs. On looking further in, I perceived the fruit-woman with a child in her arms, and kissing it, while a country nurse seemed to be claiming her wages from her. The poor woman, who without doubt had exhausted every explanation and every excuse, was crying in silence, and one of her neighbors was trying in vain to appease the countrywoman. Excited by that love of money which the evils of a hard peasant life but too well excuse, and disappointed by the refusal of her expected wages, the nurse was launching forth in recriminations, threats, and abuse. In spite of myself, I listened to the quarrel, not daring to interfere, and not thinking of going away, when Michael Arout appeared at the shop door.

The joiner had just come from the Barrier, where he had pa.s.sed part of the day at the public-house. His blouse, without a belt, and untied at the throat, showed none of the n.o.ble stains of work; in his hand he held his cap, which he had just picked up out of the mud; his hair was in disorder, his eye fixed, and the pallor of drunkenness in his face. He came reeling in, looked wildly around him, and called Genevieve.

She heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed into the shop; but at the sight of the miserable man, who was trying in vain to steady himself, she pressed the child in her arms and bent over it with tears.

The countrywoman and the neighbor had followed her.

"Come! come! do you intend to pay me, after all?" cried the former in a rage.

"Ask the master for the money," ironically answered the woman from the next door, pointing to the joiner, who had just fallen against the counter.

The countrywoman looked at him.

"Ah! he is the father," returned she. "Well, what idle beggars! not to have a penny to pay honest people, and get tipsy with wine in that way."

The drunkard raised his head.

"What! what!" stammered he; "who is it that talks of wine? I've had nothing but brandy! But I am going back again to get some wine! Wife, give me your money; there are some friends waiting for me at the wine shop."

Genevieve did not answer; he went round the counter, opened the till, and began to rummage in it.

"You see where the money of the house goes!" observed the neighbor to the countrywoman; "how can the poor unhappy woman pay you when he takes all?"

"Is that my fault?" replied the nurse angrily. "They owe it to me and somehow or other they must pay me!"

And letting loose her tongue, as those women out of the country do, she began relating at length all the care she had taken of the child and all the expense it had been to her. In proportion as she recalled all she had done, her words seemed to convince her more than ever of her rights and to increase her anger. The poor mother, who no doubt feared that her violence would frighten the child, returned into the back shop and put it into its cradle.

Whether it is that the countrywoman saw in this act a determination to escape her claims, or that she was blinded by pa.s.sion, I cannot say; but she rushed into the next room, where I heard the sounds of quarreling, with which the cries of the child were soon mingled. The joiner, who was still rummaging in the till, was startled and raised his head.

At the same moment Genevieve appeared at the door, holding in her arms the baby that the countrywoman was trying to tear from her. She ran toward the counter, and throwing herself behind her husband cried:

"Michael, defend your son!"

The drunken man quickly stood up erect, like one who awakes with a start.

"My son!" stammered he; "what son?"

His looks fell upon the child; a vague ray of intelligence pa.s.sed over his features.

"Robert," resumed he; "it is Robert!"

He tried to steady himself on his feet, that he might take the baby, but he tottered. The nurse approached him in a rage.

"My money, or I shall take the child away!" cried she. "It is I who have fed and brought it up: if you don't pay me for what has made it live, it ought to be the same to you as if it were dead. I shall not go until I have my due or the baby."

"And what would you do with him?" murmured Genevieve, pressing Robert against her bosom.

"Take it to the Foundling!" replied the countrywoman harshly; "the hospital is a better mother than you are, for it pays for the food of its little ones."

At the word "Foundling," Genevieve had exclaimed aloud in horror. With her arms wound round her son, whose head she hid in her bosom, and her two hands spread over him, she had retreated to the wall, and remained with her back against it, like a lioness defending her young ones. The neighbor and I contemplated this scene, without knowing how we could interfere. As for Michael, he looked at us by turns, making a visible effort to comprehend it all. When his eye rested upon Genevieve and the child, it lit up with a gleam of pleasure; but when he turned toward us, he again became stupid and hesitating.

At last, apparently making a prodigious effort, he cried out, "Wait!"

And going to a tub full of water, he plunged his face into it several times.

Every eye was turned upon him; the countrywoman herself seemed astonished. At length he raised his dripping head. This ablution had partly dispelled his drunkenness; he looked at us for a moment, then he turned to Genevieve, and his face brightened up.

"Robert!" cried he, going up to the child and taking him in his arms.