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 formic acid in their poison sacks was rather pungent for his taste. But their young, whether in the form of larvas or of pupæ, he regarded as a delicacy.

Standing astride the procession, he began hastily licking up as many as he could, munching and gulping down captives and captors together with huge satisfaction. Formica, with her burden, just evaded this horrid fate. Alert and observant as always, she slipped under the edge of a pebble as the long red tongue of the skunk was descending upon her. But the hot breath of the devouring monster filled her with wholesome fear. Still clinging to her precious burden, she crept aside from the crippled column, taking a path of her own, and rejoined it only under the shelter of the fence.

When the remnants of the rear guard had escaped him the skunk climbed through the fence, hoping to find the procession again on the other side. In this, however, though he searched diligently, he was disappointed, for the line of march lay for several yards along beneath the bottom rail before emerging again into the open. The skunk, stumbling upon a mouse nest in the grass, forgot all about the ants. And the expedition, diminished by fully a third of its number, made its way back to the citadel without further misad-