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Updated: May 3, 2025
They are only great lumps at best." "Well," replied Sir Ralph, "if it comes to that, what's the sea but a big wet thing?" "And what are people but a kind of superior ant, and the grandest palaces but big anthills?" Beechy chimed in.
She listened with mute and contented attention to all the wonderful details of the life of these frail creatures: their subterranean homes; the manner in which they seize, shut up, and feed plant-lice to drink the sweet milk which they secrete, as we keep cows in our barns; their custom of domesticating little blind insects which clean the anthills, and of going to war to capture slaves who will take care of their victors with such tender solicitude that the latter even lose the habit of feeding themselves.
In under the firs there were anthills as big as haycocks, and the ants had broad trodden paths running like foothpaths between the trees, on and on endlessly; a multitude of hosts passed backward and forward upon those roads. Under some small fir-trees a hedgehog was busy attacking a wasps' nest; it poked its nose into the nest, drew it quickly back, and sneezed.
On this island they found numerous land crabs, some as large as their two hands, and many fierce-looking spiders, with long, hairy legs and bulging eyes. Ants were also numerous, and in one spot they located fifteen anthills, each as large as a big beehive. Insects of all sorts were numerous, and they had to continually slap at a specimen of red fly that annoyed them greatly.
The text must be here erroneous, as two paces, or ten feet, will scarcely suffice in describing the boa constrictor, sometimes near thirty feet long. An account of the termites, or white ants of Africa, will appear hereafter. The circumstance of serpents taking up their abode in the large anthills, must be entirely accidental. Probably the Pintado, or Guinea fowl.
We had a good morning drill over what is perfect artillery country, with just the right amount of excitement in the shape of ditches to jump, and anthills, which are legion, and holes to avoid. I am delighted with my pair, which are both very fit now; and our waggon team has been going very well. "June 4. Riding exercise and sham-fight; an enemy supposed to be attacking a convoy.
In under the firs there were anthills as big as haycocks, and the ants had broad trodden paths running like foothpaths between the trees, on and on endlessly; a multitude of hosts passed backward and forward upon those roads. Under some small fir-trees a hedgehog was busy attacking a wasps' nest; it poked its nose into the nest, drew it quickly back, and sneezed.
To her it seemed full to overflowing, and more like one of the anthills that were Peter's abhorrence in the garden than anything else. The continuous stream of human beings flowing in all directions was a never-ending source of wonder to her. "Every single one of these people must have a story, you know," she said to the others one day. "Some are good and some are wicked, I suppose."
Before Dodo stopped speaking the whole party were looking where she pointed, Olive using the field-glass. "Those are a pair of Redstarts," she said, "and they are picking up ants. I saw a number of little anthills there yesterday." "A pair?" queried Nat. "They aren't the same color one has yellow spots where the other is red."
After that the weather was generally overcast and pleasant for travelling; but sometimes rain and torrid sunshine alternated. The cooking and it was good cooking was done at a funny little open-air fireplace, with two or three cooking-pots placed at the stern of the house-boat. The fireplace was a platform of earth, taken from anthills, and heaped and spread on the boards of the boat.
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