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EUPHORIA. The sense of well-being; of fullness of life. EVIRATION. Emasculation; loss of manly characteristics. FERAL. Wild by nature; untamed; undomesticated. FORMICARY. An artificial ants' nest. GEMUeTH. Disposition; the entire affective soul and its habitual state. HEBETUDE. Dullness; stupidity.
These industrious little creatures abound in India: they are so small that it takes eight or ten of them to carry a single grain of wheat or barley; and yet they will patiently drag along their big burden for five hundred or a thousand yards to the door of their formicary.
An action that obeyed, was directed by, the incredibly gigantic, communistic will which, like the spirit of the hive, the soul of the formicary, animated every unit of them. A greater realization swept us. If THIS were true, then those pillars in the vast hall, its towering walls all this City was one living Thing! Built of the animate bodies of countless millions!
He can spend a happy day in watching the busy affairs of a formicary, and to observe the progress of a bit of spider-web architecture gives him a peculiar joy. There are some severe and sour-complexioned theologians who would call this devotion to objects so far outside of his parish an illicit passion.
Swarming on the extremity of the branches among which the formicary is constructed, the defenders, projecting their terminal segments as far into space as possible, eject formic acid in the direction of the enemy. Like shrapnel from machine guns, the liquid missile sweeps a considerable area.
A favourite set target is the bulbous formicary of the white ant which disfigures so many of the trees of the forest. Along tracks where the spears are readily available there are few white-ant nests untormented by two or three.
If they happen to get on the hands or fingers, they submit to be restored to the gate; but go to the formicary on the mango-tree half a dozen yards away and offer a friendly finger, and you will find dozens of pugnacious individuals ready to defend their home.
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