Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1872 — ANTS. [ARTICLE]

ANTS.

I met to day two straggling streams of workers moving along a liill-side path, one to, the other fro—black-bodied, six-legged,-with a mo9t determined aspect, and an almost forbidding look (I forgot . to mention that there was a magnifying glass mmy hand). Apparently each and all were much pressed for time ; they hurried along singly, none speaking to his neighbor, each seeming intent on his own object, though the result was to be common; each bearing his own burden, not often helpful to others, self-concen-trated, eager, hitter, obstinate, self-willed, narrow, conscientious, ambitious. 1 fol lowed them till I reached a disturbed anthillock, which had been lately overthrown, and where the possessors were repairing their home with the most vehement industry. Who directs them? Each seemed to be going on his own hook, minding his own business, hardly conscious of the existence of any thing but himself—“frightfully in earnest,” as Disraeli once said of Gladstone. Yet the work was all in common. The community of goods, indeed, seemed absolute. No one had any personal property whatever: house, stores, egirs, everything belonged to all. No one interfered with the rest; there was apparently no chief, overlooker, or di rector ; yet the work went on apace— Ik*?-,repairing and building up of the city “with neatness and dispatch.” Some'seized a peHctoToafth, or a stone, and dragged it backward up the steep incline, using their hind legs to cling on to rough places, while they hauled away at a weight,greater far than that of their own hodieC Some hoisted aloft in their front arms, as it were, a stick, or piece of grass, twice or even thrice their own length, and moved forward bearing it in the air. Each addition' was placed in what each considered the best place; but the'general form of the dome grew in a curiously regular diminishing curve, as if each boro the architect’s elevation in his pocket. Some of the workers were making desperate efforts to move heavy (to them) beams of wood; but, after superhuman exertions gave up the attempt when cloarly beyond their strength. If a thing, however, was anyways within the abounds of possibility, it was wondrous with what obstinate pertinacity they would return, e. g., to a pellet winch had rolled away from them, even to the bottom of the hillock, again and again, and begin once more to haul it up; tugging, lifting it over stones and under sticks, tumbling over, with their burden on the other side of an obstacle which they hnd scaled, and lying for a few seconds quite exhausted, yet never leaving hold of their burden, andsetting off again undauntedly as soon as they recovered breath. Occasionally two or more were helping at a task; but they generally scemca to prefer working alone.

The ant-hill was on a steep, rocky, wooded hill-side, jitnk with spikes of heather, feathered with bracken, which hung over the nest, while tall mountain grasses, with bright, glazed red-and amber stalks, sprang up through the moving mound of life. The August sun shone on tho pleasant spot; while through the white stems of the birch I Could catch sight of the river running ait tho bottom of tho deep valley; find the sound of the dashing water almong the stones far away came up with ai soft murmur to my mountain perch. There was a “susurro” of wind among tho trees, the twitter of, the autumn note of a bird, and the buzz and hum of insect life hovered round; but the ants were all silent; and the sort of low hiss which arose from the collected workers resembled the noise of a London street more than any other form of speech. The rest of the world seemed wrapped in a sort of lazy content in the soft, sunny weather; but the ants did not soem to be enjoying life any more than the men whom one meets hurrying, along the Strand. < < jr Probably the appreciation -of a beautiful view is not facilitated by crawling over grass and sand, with one’s head close to the ground! Besides, the faculty of admiring scenery is not only the distinctive quality of man, but is confined to a very small educated,scct!onof them; and I doubt whether the ants are ever likely to be educated into, lovers of the picturesque; they are too hard-headed, busi-ness-like a people. lam sure they keep their account-books admirably, and have always a balance at their banker’s, and that their stores are all labeled, and always to be found at onoe on the . right shelves. •- There is, however, a softer side to their characters: they are warm friends and allies, and assiduous nurses, carrying out the eggs of the cummunity on fine days to warm and comfort the unborn children, not their own, but the nation’s; and, if you try to take an egg away, the guardian will be cut to pieces rather than §ive up his charge to the foe. He is enuring, brave, bold, enterprising; faithful to his friends, cruel to his enemies. His muscular power ir astonishing. He is said to be the strongest being of his sizo alive. And as to his mind, M. Qugtrefagcs, an eminent French natural-

ist, after saying that instinct is more developed among insects than in any other creatures, adds that ants stand highest in this respect, “ possessing qualities which sgem to resemble those which education, perhaps, masks among men.” The distinction between intelligence and instinct, as shown aniongst them, is difficult indeed to define. On one occasion he watched them dragging the wing of a cockchafer into their nest. The opening was too small; and the workers pulled down part of the wall. Some pushed at it from without, some dragged it from within. Still the magnificent beam, which was probably intended to make a whole ceiling, could not be got in : they left it, increased the size of the opening; and the wing was at last swallowed up, though probably half a dozen interior partitions must have been thrown down before it reached its proper place; after tiffs the door was built up again. Among monkeys, “nearest in structure to man, no fact has been observed marking deliberation and judgment in common to such a degree.” It is baffling to think how entirely we are outside such intelligent and advanced organizations as these. We cannot guess at their thoughts and feelings: their external habits are even unintelligible t» us. We seem not to have a point whereat to touch. To-day they were quite unconscious of my existence; perhaps I was too big to be seen; they took no more notice of me than of a stone as long as I remained still; and stung me when I 'interrupted their business, it was my finger, not me, which they attacked. A short-sighted man, however, the other day, who approached his face too near to a nest, was spit or shot at (whatever be the engine used to eject the formic acid) for his pains; and was obliged to draw hack his eyes precipitately from the sharp, stinging volley. They understand each other, it is said, by means of the antennae. No doubt, touch, when sufficiently cultivated, even in man, is an extraordinary medium of communication! as was seen in Laura Bridgeinan, the blind, deaf mute; but one would like to understand the ant’s finger alphabet.

The hand in man is considered a miracle of art; but the ant seems to use his six feet indifferently, as prehensile organs, to hold, to pull, to lift, to drag, to cling. The keenness of their smell appears to be marvelous, so that not so much as a cockroach can die in the cßrner of a dark room bat the enterprising portion of the race living in India, who eat everything and go everywhere, contrive to find it out and carry it away. But to us the most extraordinary of their qualities is the power of seif-sacri-fice,tire almost moral elevation, -whereby the good of the individual is up to that of thiffcommunity. A line of ants ou their travels were once seen trying to pass a little stream, which proved too rapid for them to cross. At last they hooked themselves on eacli to each, and thus gradually made a chaifi, which was carried bbliquely to the other shore by the current. Many were drowned and lost in the process; the foremost of the band were often baffled, and knocked about in the rushing water; but the floating hiidge was at last complete; and the rest of the army marched in safety upon the bodies of their self-sacrificing fellows. Could any so-called reasoning men have done better, or as well? Our pontoons are not made of living men. In India, the precautions taken against their voracity are mary and ingenious; but the man is almost always baffled by the insect. Wood, paper, cloth, provisions, everything but metal, is com sumed; oven the legs of tables are hollowed out, ami left standing as empty shells, which give way at a touch. In one case, some preserves had been put in a elbset, ieolatod from the wall, with feet set in basins of water. The ants, however, were not to be so outwitted; they crawled up to the ceiling, and let themselves down, each ant hanging on to the one abovp him, till the last link touched the goal, when a stream of hungry applicants ran down, and made short work of the coveted treasure. Did those who thus profited give any of tlie food to the self-sacrificing members of the living chain, I woutler? And what reward did the patriot receive who held on to the ceiling, and bore the weight of the rope of ants? "No wonder that the emmet has been held up as a model of wisdom and industry sffffee men have "made Morals” at alt ; that Solomon declares the ants to be #a people not strong, but exceedingly wise,” who "prepare t.hcir meat in the summer;” that Milton talks With respect of “the parsimonious emmet, provident of future —

“In small room,large heart enclosed." But the highest praise he has received is from Mr. Darwin, who says that “the size of the brain is closely connected with higher mental powers; and the cerebral ganglia of ants is of extraordinary comparative dimensions. Still, cubic contents are no accurate gauge: there may be extraordinary mental activity with extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter.’’ It seems as if the fineness of the quality was more important even than its quantity. “The wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants, exist with cerebral ganglia not so large as the quarter of a small pin’s head.” A son of Mr. Darwin succeeded in tho anatomy of an ant’s brain; and his father observes, “It is one of the most? marvelous atoms of matter in the world—more so even than the -brain of man." Yet such is the prodigal wealth of nature that millions on -millions of these “marvelous atoms” come into the world every summer, with apparently no other end than to be eaten and crushed, and to die in a , hundred different ways, after their few days of life. Their use in the world, as far as we can fathom it, is as scavengers; but, if we had been born ants, we should probably consider this a wretchedly perfunctory account of the be all and end all of our existence. The ant may hot be able to see very far; bat one has a painful perception that our own vision is relatively not much less narrow.—-Good Words. —Chan Lai Sun, the Chinese Imperial ■Commissioner of Education,, and his wife were admitted to the South Church, at Springfield, Mass., by letters from one of the mission churches in China. —The Babcock farm, a tract of about 40 acres, on Park river, just outside of Hartford, lias been selected as the pew site for Trinity College. f —An enterprising Albany (N.Y. jliquor dealer hired two camels from a circus to draw wines and liquors during the horse epidemic. ' 1