United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nightingales, he says, should be fed on meal, worms, and fresh ants' eggs: but, if it is not possible to get these, a mixture of hard egg, ox-heart minced, and white bread may be given; but this often kills the birds. No such food would do for Noah's nightingales, then, or where would have been the nightingale's song? They must have been fed on meal, worms, and fresh ant's eggs.
The mother had made a note of this dome some time before. It takes a number of such domes to raise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old one stepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorous rakes with her claws. The friable ant-hilt was broken open, and the earthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope.
One might suppose that some giant of yore had ploughed out this country and left it. A newly-ploughed field must seem, to an ant's vision, something like the contour of this to ours. The land is richly wooded. Here and there we see the heavy bush, mammoth trees soaring up, overhung with creepers and ferns; but the heavy bush is chiefly at some distance from the waterside.
Well, for some time nothing happened to the old gentleman rabbit. He walked on and on, and once he saw a little red ant, trying to drag a piece of cake home for dinner. The cake was so big that the ant was having a dreadful time with it, but Uncle Wiggily took his left ear, and just brushed that cake into the ant's house as easily as anything.
I was not prepossessed in his favor before I came, for among other stories of his cruel disposition, I was told that it was "absolutely true" that three years ago he poured boiling water down the back of a runaway female slave who had been recaptured, and then put a red ant's nest upon it.
One day the other daughters of the king consulted as to how they should find out the truth about their sister's husband. They took their sister into the garden and asked her many questions, but Maria kept silent about the snake's secret. So her sisters fastened her to a tree at the bottom of which was an ant's nest.
The successful debut of the winged males and females depends likewise on the workers. It is amusing to see the activity and excitement which reigns in an ant's nest when the exodus of the winged individuals is taking place. The workers clear the roads of exit, and show the most lively interest in their departure, although it is highly improbable that any of them will return to the same colony.
His eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, giving him so striking a resemblance to some rare fish in an aquarium that one's primary impulse was to offer him an ant's egg. Watching this fist-waving cook and this goggling guest, I must say that my sympathies were completely with the former. I considered him thoroughly justified in waving all the fists he wanted to.
One in particular, which the people called "gunhar," was of the hue of beetroot, and grew upon its stalk in heavy, gorgeous masses, which added considerably to the richness of the landscape. The seed of this consists of myriads of little semi-transparent white grains, very like ant's eggs, and the taste is something similar to that of wheat.
And instead of merely struggling with Nature for it, they also fight other ants. The custom of plunder seems to be a part of most of their wars. This has gone on for ages among them, and continues today. Raids, ferocious combats, and loot are part of an ant's regular life.