Ways of the Ant

First published in 1954 the author, John Crompton, used as many sources as he could, including some first hand experience with ants, to write a detailed, if somewhat colorful, book on them. Driver ants, slave-making ants, leaf-cutting ants, harvester ants and more are explored with humor, some common sense and lots of wonder. The only flaw is the author's understanding of evolution. While he uses Darwin's name a lot his ideas about how ants changed seem to be backwards. It almost sounds like he thinks ants PLANNED out their changes or changed to suit the changing world. The Driver ants can't try out certain seeds to see if it will allow the colony to survive without meat any more than I can make a new race of wood-eating cats by forcing the first generation of kittens to eat wood. Natural selection only goes so far. Cats do eat grass but they don't live on it. Still fun to read and compare to our newer knowledge about ants and their ways.