The masters themselves had no occupation except that of war. When not raiding some village of the blacks, the red soldiers did nothing but wander lazily about.
Huber wanted to learn what would be the result if the red ants found themselves without servants. Would the big creatures know how to supply their own needs? He put a few of the red insects in a glass, having some honey in a corner. They did not go near it. They did not know enough to feed themselves. Some of them died of starvation, with food before them. Then he put into the case one black ant. It went straight to the honey, and with it fed its big, starving, silly masters. Here was a wonder, truly!
The little blacks exert in many things a moral force whose signs are plainly visible. For example, those tiny, wise creatures will not give permission to any of the great red ones to go out alone. Nor are these at liberty to go out even in a body, if their small helpers fear a storm, or if the day is far advanced. When a raid proves fruitless, the soldiers coming back without any living booty are forbidden by the blacks to enter the city, and are ordered to attack some other village.
Not wishing to rely entirely on his own conclusions, Huber asked one of the great naturalists of Switzerland, Jurine, to decide whether or not mistakes had been made regarding these customs of the ants. This witness, and indeed others, found that Huber"s reports were true.
"Yet, after all," says Huber,"I still doubted. But on a later day I again saw in the park of Fontainebleau, near Paris, the same workings of ant life and wisdom. A well-known naturalist was with me then, and his conclusions were the same as mine.
"It was half-past four in the afternoon of a very warm day. From a pile of stones there came forth a column of about five hundred reddish ants. They marched rapidly towards a field of turf, order in their ranks being kept by their sergeants. These watched the flanks, and would not permit any to straggle.
"Suddenly the army disappeared. There was no sign of an ant-hill in the turf, but, after a while, we detected a little hole.
Through this the ants had vanished. We supposed it was an entrance to their home. In a minute they showed us that our supposition was incorrect. They issued in a throng, nearly every one of them carrying a small black captive.
"From the short time they had taken, it was plain that they knew the place and the weakness of its citizens. Perhaps it was not the reds" first attack on this city of the little blacks. These swarmed out in great numbers; and, truly, I pitied them. They did not attempt to fight. They seemed terror- stricken, and made no attempt to oppose the warrior ants, except by clinging to them. One of the marauders was stopped thus, but a comrade that was free relieved him of his burden, and thereupon the black ant let go his grasp.
"It was in face a painful sight. The soldiers succeeded in carrying off nearly five hundred children. About three feet from the entrance to the ant-hill, the plundered black parents ceased to follow the red robbers and resigned themselves to the loss of their young. The whole raid did not occupy more than ten minutes.
"The parties were, as we have seen, very unequal in strength, and the attack was clearly an outrage-an outrage no doubt often repeated. The big red ants, knowing their power, played the part of tyrants; and, whenever they wanted more slaves, despoiled the small, weak blacks of their greatest treasures-their children."Jules Michelet.
Author.-Jules Michelet (zhul-meesh-lay"), born 1798, died 1874, was a great French historian, famous for his monumental Histoire de France (19 volumes), and many other historical and general writings.
General Notes.-Animals generally fight for their food or their mates. Why do human beings fight? Ants not only keep slaves, but keep "cows" (plant-lice) and milk them. Write an account of the battle as described by an ant.
LESSON 20
THE SkATER AND THE WOlVES
I had left my friend"s house one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble river which glided directly before the door. The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twinkled from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in millions. Light also came glinting from ice and snow-wreath and encrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the river, that like a jewelled zone swept between the mighty forests on its banks. And yet all was still. The cold seemed to have frozen tree and air and water, and every living thing. Even the ringing of my skates echoed back from the hill with a startling clearness; and the crackle of the ice, as I passed over it in my course, seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.
I had gone up the river nearly two miles, when, coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned into it to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century"s growth met overhead and formed an archway radiant with frost- work. All was dark within; but I was young and fearless, and, as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on theborders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness.
My wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. Suddenly a sound arose-it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it was low and tremulous at first, but it ended in one long, wild yell! I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. Presently I heard the brushwood on shore crash, as though from the tread of some animal. The blood rushed to my forehead-my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape.