Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 144.djvu/93

1888.] given only for one short flight, drop from them at a touch.

Thicker and faster follow the flying torrents; the lamps are obscured by the dense twinkling crowds, ever increasing in multitude, till tables and floor are strewn with the bodies of the dead and living.

Basins of water, set out to receive them, are soon filled with the struggling swarms; lizards on the walls are gorged with the abundant feast; and in the garden, where the malee has lighted a fire, and thousands fly to swift destruction in the flames, frogs and toads are seen seated in the lurid light filling their bodies to bursting with the helpless prey.

But when all the sins of the ants have been noted, the ways of these wonderful creatures must always be a source of interest. As you drink your tea in the early morning your eye will be attracted by something moving on the verandah floor. A moth's wing has apparently stood upright, and is travelling along in an erratic course, as if alive. Looking closely, you will see that the wing is being borne along by a tiny ant, so small as to be invisible at a few paces.

The little insect is staggering under a crushing weight, and making herculean efforts to drag his prize to some far-off destination. And there is more to wonder at than the gallant physical effort. The power of the ant lies, doubtless, not only in his intelligence or in his energy, but also in his wonderful self-abnegation and instinct for acting in community.

It must be supposed that a moth's wing is good to eat, but is there any animal but an ant who, wandering alone and finding a delicious morsel in his path, would think and act as he does? Would not dog or cat or bird – unless in search of food for an infant family – think himself fortunate as he ate up the good thing thrown in his way? Even among men, lords of creation, how many would be proof against a similar temptation? But the ant seems to have no thought of self: his only thought is, "What a feast for the tribe!" or if he has any selfish feeling at all, it is, "What kudos I shall get when I bring this in!" Hungry as he is after a long ramble, he does not dream of tasting his prize; but hoisting it from the ground – a thing five times his own size – he nearly breaks his back urging it along in the direction of the camp, perhaps half a mile away.

Has any one ever seen such a prize landed at its final destination? I never have. Whether the scene is enacted in house or garden, or on the highroad, the booty is always being hurried away elsewhere. Even when it is the huge carcass of a beetle or wasp, carried by fifty ants, preceded and followed by a regiment of comrades, the goal always seems far away. Never within human sight do the captors sit down and make merry with the game they have bagged: always they are en route to some unknown retreat where it can be shared with others. Perhaps Sir John Lubbock can read their thoughts, and explain this unexampled self-denial. At some time and in some place, we must believe that the fruit of their endless labours is enjoyed; but that dark festival, when at last the banquet is spread, and the rich spoil shared in common, when the ant-laugh rings through the vaulted cavern, and the toiler of the morning is rewarded by the praises of his chief, is for ever shrouded in mystery.