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Senhor Silva, as we marched on, gave us a very interesting account of these white ants, with the habits of which he was well acquainted, as he told us he had had one of the mounds cut completely in two, so as to examine the interior. The under part alone of the mound is inhabited by the ants; the upper portion serving as a roof to keep the lower warm and moist for hatching the eggs.
Father will feed you, While mother will sing, And shelter our darlings With her warm wing." And the ants were saying to one another as they hurried in and out of their little houses, "Work, neighbor, work! Do not stop to play; Wander far and wide, Gather all you may. We are never like Idle butterflies, But like the busy bees, Industrious and wise."
And Leroy believes further that it isn't an intelligent arrangement not on the part of the barrels, at least but that it's been done for so many thousands of generations that it's become instinctive a tropism just like the actions of ants and bees. The creatures have been bred to it!" "Nuts!" observed Harrison. "Let's hear you explain the reason for that big empty city, then." "Sure.
I daresay the weasel will have me some day, and I do not care if he does, now my leveret is dead; and very soon his poor bones will be picked clean by the ants, and after the corn is carried the plough will bury them."
This frontier is respected much more perfectly than among men, bound merely by "scraps of paper." The citizen ants of the two communities always keep strictly within their borders. A matter of even greater interest is to note how this war-making instinct originates among our brothers the insects; to study how it develops; and to ascertain whether it is fixed or modifiable.
It cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion of its being imitation, but I think it may well be so under that of its being memory. Again, a little further on in the same lecture as that above quoted from, we find: "Ants and beavers lay up magazines. Where do they get their knowledge that it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather as it is in summer?
One of these, that oddly enough was well-preserved, perhaps because the white ants or other creatures did not like the taste of its morocco binding, was a Keble's Christian Year, on the title-page of which was written, "To my dearest Elizabeth on her birthday, from her husband." I took the liberty to put it in my pocket.
"How is my little friend Willie to-day?" she asked. "Please'm, 'e's gittin' better now 'e don't 'ave to come an' stay out 'ere with me," was the answer. Bob could always find his tongue when any one asked him about Willie. "I'm so glad," said Miss Elton. "I want him to come to the treat." "Yes," said Bob, "'e ants to come." "Do you always sweep this crossing?" she inquired.
I am sorry for both of us, George, that we can't sit there under the trees and eat out of a basket and have spiders and ants in things and not mind it. Here we are in the land of Smithfield hams and spoon-bread and we ate canned lobster for lunch, and alligator pear salad." "Baked ham and spoon-bread for our sins?"
We were utterly at our wits' end, and meekly gazed at the historical mass before us, not knowing what to do next. Almost at the summit of the mountain, under the overhanging rocks, were a dozen black openings. Hundreds of pilgrims were crawling upwards, looking, in their holiday dresses, like so many green, pink, and blue ants. Here, however, our faithful Hindu friends came to our rescue.
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