Jungle Peace

VIII

And now we surveyed our little kingdom. One path led down to our boats, another meandered eastwards through the hills. But like the feathered end of the magnetic arrow, we drifted as with one will to the south. Here at the edge of our cleared compound we were confronted by a tangle. It was not very high—twenty feet or so—but dense and unbroken. Like newly trapped creatures we paced back and forth along it looking for an opening. It was without a break. We examined it more closely and saw a multitude of slender, graceful cane stems hung with festoons and grass-like drapery. One of us seized a wisp of this climbing grass and pulled downward. When he dropped it his hand dripped blood. He might as well have run a scroll saw over his fingers. The jungle had shown its teeth.

We laughed and retreated to the upper floor for consultation. The sight we saw there decided us. In the distance "not too far," to use the hopelessly indefinite Guiana vernacular, high over the tumbled lower growths towered the real jungle—the high bush. This was the edge of that mighty tropical ocean of foliage, that sea of life with its surface one hundred, two hundred feet above the earth, stretching unbroken to the Andes: leagues of unknown wonderland. And here we were, after thousands of miles of voyaging to study the life of this great jungle, to find our last few yards blocked by a mass of vegetation. There was no dissenting voice. We must cut a trail, and at once, straight to the jungle.

Before we begin our trail, it will be wise to try to understand this twenty-foot tangle, stretching almost a mile back from Kalacoon. Three years before it was pure jungle. Then man came with ax and saw and fire and one by one the great giants were felled—mora, greenheart, crabwood—each crashing its way to earth after centuries of upward growth. The underbrush in the dark, high jungle is comparatively scanty. Light-starved and fungus-plagued, the shrubs and saplings are stunted and weak. So when only the great stumps were left standing, the erstwhile jungle showed as a mere shambles of raw wood and shriveled foliage. After a time fire was applied, and quickly, as in the case of resinous trees, or with long, slow smolderings of half-rotted, hollow giants, the huge boles were consumed.

For a period, utter desolation reigned. Charcoal and gray ash covered everything. No life stirred. Birds had flown, reptiles and insects made their escape or succumbed. Only the saffron-faced vultures swung past, on the watch for some half-charred creature. Almost at once, however, the marvelous vitality of the tropical vegetation asserted itself. Phoenix-like, from the very heart of the ashes, appeared leaves of strange shape and color. Stumps whose tissues seemed wholly turned to charcoal sent forth adventitious shoots, and splintered boughs blossomed from their wounds. Now was the lowest ebb of the jungle's life, when man for the success of his commercial aims, should take instant advantage. But plans miscarried and the ruin wrought was left to nature.

The destruction of the jungle had been complete and the searing flames had destroyed all forest seeds. In their place, by some magic, there sprang up at once a maze of weeds, vines and woody shrubs, reeds, ferns and grasses, all foreign to the dark jungle and whose nearest congeners were miles away. Yet here were their seeds and spores, baffling all attempts at tracing their migration or the time they had laid dormant.

When we had begun to penetrate this newborn tangle we found it possible, by comparing various spots, to follow its growth in past time. The first things to appear in the burned jungle area were grasses or grass-like plants and prostrate vines. These latter climbed over the fallen tree-trunks and covered the charred stumps with a glory of blossoms—white convolvulus gleaming everywhere, then pale yellow allamandas, and later, orchid-like, violet, butterfly peas which at first flowered among the ashes on the ground, but climbed as soon as they found support. Little by little, a five-finger vine flung whole chains of bloom over stumps, logs and bushes, a beautiful, blood-red passion flower, whose buds looked like strings of tiny Chinese lanterns.

Soon another type of plant appeared, with hollow and jointed stems, pushing out fans of fingered leaves, swiftly, wasting no time in branching, but content with a single spike piercing up through strata of grass and reeds, through shrubs and bushes until it won to the open sky. This was the cecropia or trumpet tree, falsely appearing firm and solid stemmed, but quite dominant in the neglected tangle.

We started early one morning with small axes and sharp machetes, and single file, began to cut and hew and tear a narrow trail southward. For some distance we found almost a pure culture of the cecropia trees, through which we made rapid progress which aroused entirely false hopes. It was a joy to crash obliquely through the crisp hollow stems at one blow from our great knives. The second man cut again at the base and the rest took the severed stems and threw or pushed them to one side, cutting away any smaller growths. We soon learned to be careful in handling the stems for they were sanctuary for scores of a small stinging ant, whose race had practiced preparedness for many generations and who rushed out when the stem was split by cutlass or ax.

As we went on we learned that differences in soil which were not apparent when the great jungle covered everything, had now become of much importance. On high sandy spots the cecropias did not get that flying start which they needed for their vertical straightaway dash. Here a community of hollow reeds or bamboo grass appeared from no one knows where. They had grown and multiplied until their stems fairly touched one another, forming a dense, impenetrable thicket of green, silicious tubes eight to twelve feet in length. These were smooth and hard as glass and tapered beautifully, making wonderfully light and strong arrows with which our Akawai Indians shot fish. Slow indeed was our progress through this. The silica dulled and chipped our blades and the sharp points of the cut stems lamed us at a touch.

But whatever the character of the vegetation, whether a tangle of various thorny nightshades, a grove of cecropias, or a serried phalanx of reeds, the terrible razor-grass overran all. Gracefully it hung in emerald loops from branch to branch, festooning living foliage and dead stump alike, with masses of slender fronds. It appeared soft and loose-hung as if one could brush it away with a sweep of the hand. But it was the most punishing of all living things, insidiously cutting to the bone as we grasped it, and binding all this new growth together with bands more efficient than steel.

An age-old jungle is kind to the intruder, its floor is smooth and open, one's footsteps fall upon soft moss, the air is cooled and shadowed by the foliage high overhead. Here, in this mushroom growth of only three years, our progress became slower and ever more difficult. Our hands bled and were cut until we could barely keep them gripped about the cutlass handles; our trail opened up a lane down which poured the seething heat of the sun's direct rays; thorns penetrated our moccasins and ants dropped down our necks and bit and stung simultaneously with opposite ends of their anatomy. Five minutes' chopping and hacking was all that the leader could stand, who would then give way to another. Fifty yards of a narrow lane represented our combined efforts the first day.

Direction was a constant source of trouble. Every three or four feet we had to consult a compass, so confusing was the tangle. Sudden gullies blocked us, a barren, half-open, sandy slope cheered us for a few yards. It was nature's defense and excelled any barbed-wire entanglement I have ever seen at the battle-front.

Once I came to a steep concealed gully. The razor-grass had been particularly bad, giving like elastic to blows of the cutlass and then flying back across my face. I was adrip with perspiration, panting in the heat when I slid part way down the bank, and chopping away a solid mass of huge elephant's ears, uncovered a tree-trunk bridging the swamp. It brought to mind the bridge from Bad to Worse in the terrible Dubious Land. Strange insects fled from the great leaves, lizards whisked past me, hummingbirds whirred close to my face—the very sound seeming to increase the heat. I slipped and fell off the log, splashing into the hot water and warm mud, and sat in it for a while, too fagged to move. Then the rest of the party came up and we clambered slowly to the top of the next rise, and there caught sight of the jungle's edge, and it seemed a trifle nearer and we went on with renewed courage. Shortly afterwards two of us were resting in a patch of reeds while the third worked some distance ahead, when there came a sudden low growl and rush. Instinctively we rose on the instant, just in time to see a jaguar swerve off on one side and disappear in a swish of swaying reed stems. I have never known one of these animals to attack a man, and in this case the jaguar had undoubtedly heard but not scented us, and the attack ceased the moment we proved to be other than deer or similar prey. The incident had come and passed too swiftly for thought, but now when we realized that this was a bit of the real wild life of the jungle, our enthusiasm never flagged, and we kept steadily at the heart-breaking work, resting only now and then for our cuts to heal.

Then a government official who was our guest, took pity on us, and for science' sake, obtained special dispensation. One morning we went out and found in our compound several huge, blue-uniformed policemen, who saluted and with real black magic, produced twenty convicts—negroes and coolies—armed with cutlasses. So began the second phase of what we now named the Convict Trail. We had already fought our painful way through a half-mile of the terrible maze, and now we heartily welcomed this new aid, whether good-natured murderers, and burglars, or like Sippy, Slorg and Slith, mere thieves. We watched them strip to their black skins and begin a real assault. On a front of ten to fifteen feet, the tangle fairly dissolved before our eyes, and their great tough palms and soles made little moment of the razor-grass and thorns. In one of the slight-bodied coolies, whose task was to clear away the cut débris, I recognized Ram Narine, whose trial had been the cause of my traveling another trail.

With my friend, Hope, an honest forger, I went on far ahead and laid the course for the jungle. In especially dense parts we climbed to the summit of great jungle stumps and stretched a white sheet to guide the oncoming trail cutters.

Day after day the score of convicts returned with their guards and at last we saw the path unite with an old game and Indian trail in the cool shade of the jungle, and Kalacoon was in direct contact with the great tropical forest itself. I have passed lightly over the really frightful pain and exhaustion which we experienced in the initial part of this work, and which emphasized the tremendous difference between the age-old jungle untouched by man, and the terrible tangle which springs after he has destroyed the primeval vegetation.

After this came our reward, and never a day passed but the trail yielded many wonderful facts. The creatures of the wilderness soon found this wide swath, and used it by day and night, making it an exciting thing for us to peer around a corner, to see what strange beings were sitting or feeding in our little street.

Before the trail was quite completed, it yielded one of the most exciting hunts of our trip—the noosing of a giant bushmaster—the most deadly serpent of the tropics. Nupee—my Akawai Indian hunter, two nestling trogons and Easter eve—these things led to the capture of the Master of the Bush: For nothing in the tropics is direct, premeditated.

My thoughts were far from poisonous serpents when Nupee came into our Kalacoon laboratory late on a Saturday afternoon. Outdoors he had deposited the coarser game intended for the mess, consisting, today, of a small deer, a tinamou or maam and two agoutis. But now with his quiet smile, he held out his lesser booty, which he always brought in to me, offering in his slender, effeminate hands his contribution to science. Usually this was a bird of brilliant plumage, or a nestful of maam's eggs with shells like great spheres of burnished emeralds. These he would carry in a basket so cunningly woven from a single palm frond that it shared our interest in its contents. Today, he presented two nestling trogons, and this was against rules. For we desired only to know where such nests were, there to go and study and photograph.

"Nupee,—listen! You sabe we no want bird here. Must go and show nest, eh?"

"Me sabe."

Accompanied by one of us, off he started again, without a murmur. In the slanting rays of the sun he walked lightly down the trail from Kalacoon as if he had not been hunting since early dawn. An hour passed and the sun swung still lower when a panting voice gasped out:

"Huge labaria, yards long! Big as leg!"

The flight of queen bees and their swarms, the call to arms in a sleeping camp creates somewhat the commotion that the news of the bushmaster aroused with us. For he is really what his name implies. What the elephant is to the African jungles and the buffalo to Malaysia, this serpent is to the Guiana wilderness. He fears nothing—save one thing, hunting ants, before which all the world flees. And this was the first bushmaster of the rainy season.

Nupee had been left to mount guard over the serpent which had been found near the trogon tree. Already the light was failing; so we walked rapidly with gun, snake-pole and canvas bag. Parrakeets hurtled bamboowards to roost; doves scurried off and small rails flew from our path and flopped into the reeds. Our route led from the open compound of Kalacoon, through the freshly cut Convict Trail, toward the edge of the high bush, and we did not slacken speed until we were in the dim light which filtered through the western branches.

At the top of the slope we heard a yell—a veritable Red Indian yell—and there our Akawai hunter was dancing excitedly about, shouting to us to come on. "Snake, he move! Snake, he move!" We arrived panting, and he tremblingly led me along a fallen tree and pointed to the dead leaves. I well knew the color and pattern of the bushmaster. I had had them brought to me dead and had killed them myself, and I had seen them in their cage behind glass. But now, though I was thinking bushmaster and looking bushmaster, my eyes insisted on registering dead leaves. Eager as I was to begin operations before darkness closed down, it was a full three minutes before I could honestly say, "This is leaf; that is snake."

The pattern and pigment of the cunningly arranged coils were that of the jungle floor, anywhere; a design of dead leaves, reddish-yellow, pinkish, dark-brown, etched with mold, fungus and decay, and with all the shadows and high lights which the heaped-up plant tissues throw upon one another. In the center of this dread plaque, this reptilian mirage, silent and motionless, rested the head. I knew it was triangular and flattened, because I had dissected such heads in times past, but now my senses revealed to me only an irregularity in the contour, a central focus in this jungle mat, the unraveling of which spelt death.

It was a big snake, seven or eight feet long, and heavy bodied—by no means a one-man job. Again we carefully examined the screw-eyes on the pole, and each looked behind for a possible line of escape.

I quickly formed my method of attack. Nupee was sent to cut forked sticks, but his enthusiasm at having work to do away from the scene of immediate conflict was so sincere that he vanished altogether and returned with the sticks only when our shouts announced the end of the struggle. An Indian will smilingly undergo any physical hardship, and he will face any creature in the jungle, except the bushmaster.

We approached from three sides, bringing snake-pole, free noose and gun to bear. Slowly the noose on the pole pushed nearer and nearer. I had no idea how he would react at the attack, whether he would receive it quietly, or, as I have seen the king cobra in Burma, become enraged and attack in turn.

The cord touched his nose, and he drew back close to some bushy stems. Again it dangled against his head, and his tongue played like lightning. And now he sent forth the warning of his mastership—a sharp whirrrrr! and the tip of his tail became a blur, the rough scales rasping and vibrating against the dead leaves, and giving out a sound not less sharp and sinister than the instrumental rattling of his near relatives.

For a moment the head hung motionless, then the noose-man made a lunge and pulled his cord. The great serpent drew back like a flash, and turning, undulated slowly away toward the darker depths of the forest. There was no panic, no fear of pursuit in his movements. He had encountered something quite new to his experience, and the knowledge of his own power made it easy for him to gauge that of an opponent. He feared neither deer nor tapir, yet at their approach he would sound his warning as a reciprocal precaution, poison against hoofs. And now, when his warning had no effect on this new disturbing thing, he chose dignifiedly to withdraw.

I crept quickly along on one side and with the gun-barrel slightly deflected his course so that he was headed toward an open space, free from brush and bush-ropes. Here the pole-man awaited him, the noose spread and swaying a few inches from the leaves. Steadily the snake held to his course, and without sensing any danger pushed his head cleanly into the circle of cord. A sudden snap of the taut line and pandemonium began. The snake lashed and curled and whipped up a whirlpool of débris, while one of us held grimly on to the noose and the rest tried to disentangle the whirling coils and make certain of a tight grip close behind the head, praying for the screw-eyes to hold fast. Even with the scant inch of neck ahead of the noose, the head had such play that I had to pin it down with the gun-barrel before we dared seize it. When our fingers gained their safe hold and pressed, the great mouth opened wide, a gaping expanse of snowy white tissue, and the inch-long fangs appeared erect, each draped under the folds of its sheath like a rapier outlined beneath a courtier's cloak.

When once the serpent felt himself conquered, he ceased to struggle; and this was fortunate, for in the dim light we stumbled more than once as we sidled and backed through the maze of lianas and over fallen logs.

Nupee now appeared, unashamed and wide-eyed with excitement. He followed and picked up the wreck of battle—gun, hats and bags which had been thrown aside or knocked off in the struggle. With locked step, so as not to wrench the long body, we marched back to Kalacoon. Now and then a great shudder would pass through the hanging loops and a spasm of muscular stress that tested our strength. It was no easy matter to hold the snake, for the scales on its back were as rough and hard as a file, and a sudden twist fairly took the skin off one's hand.

I cleaned his mouth of all dirt and débris, and then we laid him upon the ground and, without stretching, found that he measured a good eight feet and a half. With no relaxing of care we slid him into the wired box which would be his home until he was liberated in his roomier quarters in the Zoölogical Park in New York.

Close to the very entrance of the Convict Trail behind Kalacoon stood four sentinel trees. Every day we passed and repassed them on the way to and from the jungle. For many days we paid very little attention to them, except to be grateful for the shade cast by their dense foliage of glossy leaves. Their trunks were their most striking feature, the bark almost concealed by a maze of beautifully colored lichens, different forms overlapping one another in many places, forming a palimpsest of gray, white, pink, mauve and lilac. One day a streaked flycatcher chose the top of a branch for her nest, and this we watched and photographed and robbed for science' sake, and again we thought no more of the four trees.

Late in April, however, a change came over the trees. The leaves had been shed some time in January and the fallen foliage formed a dry mass on the ground which crackled under foot. Now each branch and twig began to send out clusters of small buds, and one day,—a week after Easter,—these burst into indescribable glory. Every lichened bough and branch and twig was lined with a soft mass of bloom, clear, bright cerise, which reflected its brilliance on the foliage itself. After two days a rain of stamens began and soon the ground beneath the trees was solid cerise, a carpet of tens of thousands of fallen stamens, and within the length of a foot on one small branch were often a score of blooms. This feast of color was wonderful enough, and it made us want to know more of these trees. But all the information we could glean was that they were called French cashew. Yet they had not nearly finished with the surprises they had in store. A hummingbird or two was not an uncommon sight along the trail at any time, but now we began to notice an increase in numbers. Then it was observed that the tiny birds seemed to focus their flight upon one part of the clearing, and this proved to be the four cashew trees.

The next few days made the trees ever memorable: they were the Mecca of all the hummingbirds in the jungle. In early morning the air for many yards resounded with a dull droning, as of a swarming of giant bees. Standing or sitting under the tree we could detect the units of this host and then the individuals forced themselves on our notice. Back and forth the hummers swooped and swung, now poising in front of a mass of blossom and probing deeply among the stamens, now dashing off at a tangent, squeaking or chattering their loudest. The magnitude of the total sound made by these feathered atoms was astounding; piercing squeaks, shrill insect-like tones, and now and then a real song, diminutive trills and warbles as if from a flock of song birds a long distance away. Combats and encounters were frequent, some mere sparring bouts, while, when two would go at it in earnest, their humming and squeaks and throb of wings were audible above the general noise.

This being an effect, I looked for the cause. The massed cerise bloom gave forth comparatively little perfume, but at the base of each flower, hidden and protected by the twenty score densely ranked stamens, was a cup of honey; not a nectary with one or two delicately distilled drops, but a good thimbleful, a veritable stein of liquor. No creature without a long proboscis or bill could penetrate the chevaux-de-frise of stamens, and to reach the honey the hummingbirds had to probe to their eyes. They came out with forehead well dusted with pollen and carried it to the next blossom. The destiny of the flower was now fulfilled, the pot of honey might dry up, the stamens rain to the earth and the glory of Tyrian rose pass into the dull hues of decay.

Day after day as we watched this kaleidoscope of vegetable and avian hues, we came to know more intimately the units which formed the mass. There were at least fifteen species and all had peculiarities of flight and plumage so marked that they soon became recognizable at sight.

After our eyes had become accustomed to specific differences in these atoms of birds we began to notice the eccentricities of individuals. This was made easy by the persistence with which certain birds usurped and clung to favorite perches. One glowing hermit clad in resplendent emerald armor selected a bare twig on a nearby shrub and from there challenged every hummer that came in sight; whether larger, smaller or of his own kind made no difference. He considered the cashew trees as his own special property and as far as his side of them went he made good his claim. I have never seen such a concentration of virile combative force in so condensed a form.

In some such way as vultures concentrate upon carrion, so news of the cashew sweets had passed through the jungle. Not by any altruistic agency we may be certain, as we watch the selfish, irritable little beings, but by subtile scent, or as with the vultures, by the jealous watching of each other's actions. I observed closely for one hour and counted one hundred and forty-six hummingbirds coming to the tree. During the day at least one thousand must visit it.

They did not have a monopoly of the cashew manna, for now and then a honey-creeper or flower-pecker flew into the tree and took toll of the sweets. But they were scarcely noticeable. We had almost a pure culture of hummingbirds to watch and vainly to attempt to study, for more elusive creatures do not exist. Convict Trail revealed no more beautiful a sight than this concentration of the smallest, most active and the most gorgeous birds in the world.

Such treats—floral and avian—were all that might be expected of any tree, but the cashews had still more treasures in store. The weeks passed and we had almost forgotten the flowers and hummingbirds, when a new odor greeted us, the sweet, intense smell of overripe fruit. We noticed a scattering of soft yellow cashews fallen here and there, and simultaneously there arrived the hosts of fruit-eating birds. From the most delicate turquoise honey-creepers to great red and black grosbeaks, they thronged the trees. All day a perfect stream of tanagers—green, azure and wine-colored—flew in and about the manna, callistes and silver-beaks, dacnis and palm tanagers. And for a whole week we gloried in this new feast of color, before the last riddled cashew dropped, to be henceforth the prize of great wasps and gauze-winged flies, who guzzled its fermented juice and helped in the general redistribution of its flesh—back to the elements of the tropic mold, to await the swarms of fingering rootlets, a renewed synthesis—to rise again for a time high in air, again to become part of blossom and bird and insect.

It was along this Convict Trail that I sank the series of pits which trapped unwary walkers of the night, and halfway out at pit number five, the army ants waged their wonderful warfare.

In fact it was while watching operations in another sector of this same battle-front that I found myself all unintentionally in the sleeping chamber of the heliconias.

Tired from a long day's work in the laboratory, I wandered slowly along the Convict Trail, aimlessly, in that wholly relaxed state which always seems to invite small adventures. It is a mental condition wholly desirable, but not to be achieved consciously. One cannot say, "Lo, I will now be relaxed, receptive." It must come subconsciously, unnoticed, induced by a certain wearied content of body or mind—and then—many secret doors stand ajar, any one of which may be opened and passed if the gods approve. My stroll was marked at first, however, by only one quaint happening. For several weeks the jolly little trail-lizards had been carrying on most enthusiastic courtships, marked with much bowing and posing, and a terrific amount of scrambling about. The previous day—that of the first rains—numbers of lizardlets appeared, and at the same time the brown tree-lizards initiated their season of love-making. I had often watched them battle with one another—combats wholly futile as far as any damage was concerned. But the vanquished invariably gave up to his conqueror the last thing he had swallowed, the victor receiving it in a gluttonly rather than a gracious spirit, but allowing his captive to escape. I surprised one of these dark-brown chaps in the trail and seized him well up toward the head, to preserve his tail intact. Hardly had I lifted him from the ground, when he turned his head, considered me calmly with his bright little eyes, and forthwith solemnly spat out a still living ant in my direction. The inquiring look he then gave me, was exceedingly embarrassing. Who was I not to be bound in chivalry by the accredited customs of his race?

With dignity and certainty of acceptance he had surrendered, calmly and without doubt he had proffered his little substitute of sword. It was, I felt, infinitely preferable to any guttural and cowardly "kamerad!" Feeling rather shamefaced I accepted the weakly struggling ant, gently lowered the small saurian to the ground and opened my fingers. He went as he had surrendered, with steadiness and without terror. From the summit of a fallen log he turned and watched me walk slowly out of sight, and I at least felt the better for the encounter.

Of all tropical butterflies, heliconias seem the most casual and irresponsible. The background of the wings of many is jet-black, and on this sable canvas are splashed the boldest of yellow streaks and the most conspicuous of scarlet spots. Unquestionably protected by nauseous body fluids, they flaunt their glaring colors in measured, impudent flight, weaving their way slowly through the jungle, in the face of lizard and bird. Warningly colored they assuredly are. One cannot think of them except as flitting aimlessly on their way, usually threading the densest part of the undergrowth. No butterflies are more conspicuous or easier to capture. They must feed, they must pay court and mate, and they must stop long enough in their aimless wanderings to deposit their eggs on particular plants by an instinct which we have never fathomed. But these are consummations hidden from the casual observer.

Now, however, I am prepared for any unexpected meaningful trait, for I have surprised them in a habit, which presupposes memory, sociability and caution, manifested at least subconsciously.

The afternoon had worn on, and after leaving my lizard, I had squatted at the edge of a small glade. This glade was my private property, and the way by which one reached it from the nearby Convict Trail was a pressure trail, not a cut one. One pushed one's way through the reeds, which flew back into place and revealed nothing. Lifting my eyes from the tragedies of a hastening column of army ants, I saw that an unusual number of heliconias were flitting about the glade, both species, the Reds and the Yellows. All were fluttering slowly about and as I watched, one by one they alighted on the very tips of bare twigs, upside down with closed wings. In this position they were almost invisible, even a side view showing only the subdued under-wing pigments which blended with the pastel colors of twilight in the glade, reflected from variegated leaves and from the opening blossoms of the scarlet passion vine. Perhaps the most significant fact of this sleeping posture, was the very evident protection it afforded to butterflies which in motion during their waking hours are undoubtedly warningly colored and advertised to the world as inedible. Hanging perpendicularly beneath the twig, although they were almost in the open with little or no foliage overhead, yet they presented no surface to the rain of the night, and all faced northeast—the certain direction of both rain and wind.

The first one or two roosting butterflies I thought must be due to accidental association, but I soon saw my error. I counted twelve of the Red-spots and eight Yellows on two small bushes and a few minutes' search revealed forty-three more. All were swung invariably from the tips of bare twigs, and there was very evident segregation of the two kinds, one on each side of the glade.

When I disturbed them, they flew up in a colorful flurry, flapped about for a minute or less and returned, each to its particular perch. After two or three gentle waves of the wings and a momentary shifting of feet they settled again to perfect rest. This persistent choice of position was invariably the case, as I observed in a number of butterflies which had recognizable tears in their wings. No matter how often they were disturbed they never made a mistake in the number of their cabin. A certain section of a particular twig on a definite branch was the resting place of some one heliconia, and he always claimed it.

Several were bright and fresh, newly emerged, but the remainder were somewhat faded and chipped at the edges. The delicate little beings slept soundly. I waited until dusk began finally to settle down and crept gently toward a Red-spot. I brought my face close and aroused no sign of life. Then I reached up and slowly detached the butterfly from its resting place. It moved its feet slightly, but soon became quiet. Then I gently replaced it, and at the touch of the twig, its feet took new hold. When I released its wings it did not fly but sank back into the same position as before. I wondered if I was the first scientist to pluck a sleepy butterfly from a jungle tree and replace it unawakened. At the time I was more impressed by the romantic beauty of it all than by its psychological significance. I wondered if heliconias ever dreamed, I compared the peacefulness of this little company with the fierce ants which even now were just disappearing from view. These were my thoughts rather than later meditations on whether this might not be a sort of atavistic social instinct, faintly reminiscent of the gregariousness of their caterpillar youth.

From any point of view I shall think better of all butterflies for this discovery; their desire for company, the instinctive wisdom of place and posture, the gentleness and silence of the little foregathering in the jungle. As I walked back along the trail several late comers passed me, vibrating softly through the twilight, headed for their glade of dreams.

Subsequent visits to this glade emphasized the strength of association of this little fraternity, by realization of its temporal brevity. Three weeks after I first discovered the glade, I returned in late afternoon and waited silently. For a time I feared that the mariposal friendship was a thing of the past. But a few minutes before five the first Red-spot fluttered by, in and out among the twigs and leaves, as one slips an aeroplane through openings in drifting clouds. One by one, from all directions, the rest followed, until I counted twelve, twenty, thirty-four. Many of the twigs were now vacant, and most of the heliconias were tattered and forlorn, just able to keep at their fluttering level. There was something infinitely pathetic in this little company, which in less than a month had become so out at elbow, so aged, with death close ahead, yet with all their remaining strength making their way from north and from south, from dense and from open jungle, to keep tryst for this silent, somnolent communion. I rose quietly and passed carefully from the glade, disturbing none of the paper-thin silhouettes, so like the foliage in outward seeming, yet so individual, each perhaps with dim dreams of flowers and little meetings and wind tossings; certainly with small adventures awaiting their awakening on the morrow, and a very certain kismet such a short way ahead.

Two weeks after this, only three butterflies came to the glade, one newly painted, freshly emerged, the other two old and tattered and very weary.

I loitered on my homeward way and before I reached Kalacoon found myself in the Convict Trail in full moonlight. At one turn of the path a peculiar tinkling reached my ear. It was a veritable silver wire of sound—so high, so tenuous that one had to think as well as listen to keep it in audible focus. I pushed through a growth of cecropias and at once lost the sound never to hear it again, but in its place there appeared a very wonderful thing—a good-sized tree standing alone and exposed, bathed in full moonlight, and yet gleaming, as brightly as if silhouetted against complete darkness, by the greenish light of numberless fireflies. After the first marvel of the sudden sight, I approached and pulled down a branch and counted twenty-six glowing insects, as close together as the blossoms on a Japanese cherry branch. There were hundreds upon hundreds, all clustered together in candelabred glory, hidden from the view of all, at the farther side of this dense thicket. As I left I remembered with gratitude the silver wire of sound which had guided me, and in a far corner of my mind I stored a new memory—one which I could draw upon at need in distant times of pain, or of intolerance or perhaps in some lull of battle—the thought of a tree all aglow with living flames, in the moonlight of the Convict Trail.

IX

Now I stood on the brim, shocked at an unexpected sight. A horde of those Huns of the jungle, army ants, had made their drive directly across the glade, and scores of fleeing insects and other creatures had fallen headlong into this deep pit. From my man's height it was a dreadful encounter, but squatting near the edge it became even more terrible; and when I flattened myself on the sand and began to distinguish individuals and perceive the details from an ant's point of view, I realized the full horror and irresistibility of an assault by these ants.

One is not strongly affected by the dying struggles of a single grasshopper captured by a cuckoo or flycatcher. An individual roach being torn to pieces moves one but slightly. A batrachian, however, has more claim on our emotions, and my sympathy went out to a small, sandy-white frog who was making a brave fight for his life. The pit was alive with a host of the army ants, and wherever the little frog hopped, some soldier or heavy-jawed worker soon found him and sank jaws into his soft skin. With frantic scratching the frog would brush it off and leap again, only to be again attacked. The most horrible thing about these ants is their leaping ability. The hop of a bird or the jump of a toad when going about their usual business of life, if we think of it at all, is only amusing. But the sudden leap of a bulldog or tarantula, and the corresponding vicious attack of these ants, is particularly appalling. I saw a soldier leap a full inch and a half toward the landing thud of the frog and bite and sting at the instant of contact. I did not dare go into the pit. No warm-blooded creature could have stood the torture for more than a few seconds. So I opened my umbrella and reaching down, scooped up the sand-colored frog. A half-dozen ants came up in the same instrument, but I evaded them and tied up the tormented batrachian in my handkerchief.

My next glance into the pit showed a large toad, squatted on a small shelf of sand, close to the edge of a crowded column of ants. He was a rough old-chap, covered with warts and corrugations, and pigmented in dark gray, with mottlings of chocolate and dull red and occasional glints of gold. He was crouched flat, with all his fingers and toes tucked in beneath him. His head was drawn in, his eyes closed, and all his exposed surface was sticky with his acid perspiration—the sweat of fear. He knew his danger—of that there was no doubt—and he was apparently aware of the fact that he could not escape. Resignedly he had settled on the very line of traffic of the deadly foe, after intrenching himself and summoning to his aid all the defenses with which nature had endowed him. And he was winning out—the first vertebrate I have ever known to withstand the army ants. For a few minutes he would be ignored and his sides would vibrate as he breathed with feverish rapidity. Then two or three ants would run toward him, play upon him with their antennæ, and examine him suspiciously. During this time he was immovable. Even when a soldier sank his mandibles deep into the roughened skin and wrenched viciously, the toad never moved. He might have been a parti-colored pebble embedded in its matrix of sand. Once, when three bit him simultaneously, he winced, and the whitish, acrid juice oozed from his pores. Usually the ants were content with merely examining him. I left him when I saw that he was in no immediate danger.

One other creature was quiescent in the pit and yet lived: a big, brown, hardbacked millipede. Like the frog, he fully realized his danger and had sunk his bulk partly into the sand, bending down head and tail and presenting only mailed segments. A mob of ants were trying vainly to bite their way into this organic citadel.

For the dozens of grasshoppers, crickets, roaches, beetles, spiders, ants, and harvest men, there was no escape. One daddy-long-legs did a pitiful dance of death. Supported on his eight long legs, he stood high out of reach of his assailants. He was balanced so exactly that the instant a feeling antenna touched a leg, he would lift it out of reach. Even when two or three were simultaneously threatened, he raised them, and at one time stood perfectly balanced on four legs, the other four waving in air. But his kismet came with a concerted rush of half a dozen ants, which overbore him, and in a fraction of time his body, with two long legs trailing behind, was straddled by a small worker and borne rapidly away.

I now flattened myself on an antless area at the edge of the pit and studied the field of battle. In another half-hour the massacre was almost over. Five double, and often quadruple, columns were formed up the sandy cliffs, and the terrific labor of carrying out the dead victims began. The pit was five feet deep, with perfectly straight sides, which at the rim had been gutted by the rain, so that they actually overhung. Yet the ants which had half-climbed, half-tumbled and rolled their way to the bottom in the wake of their victims, now set themselves to solving the problem of surmounting these cliffs of loose, crumbling grains, dragging loads which, in most cases, were much heavier than themselves. Imagine a gang of men set to carrying bundles of one to two hundred pounds up perpendicular cliffs twelve hundred feet in height, and the task of the army ants is made more vivid. So swiftly did they work and so constantly shifted their formations and methods of meeting and surmounting difficulties, that I felt as I used when looking at a three-ring circus. I could perceive and record only a small part of the ingenious devices and the mutual assistance and sharing of the complicated conditions which arose at every step.

Among the frightened victims, even for those endowed with excellent eyesight and powerful flight, there was only hopeless confusion and blind terror. Instead of directing their flight upward, they drove from side to side. Those whose leaps should have carried them out, simply kicked out blindly and brought up against the sandy walls.

If leaf-cutting ants had been at work here, there would have been a certain amount of cooperation. Certain ones would have cut leaves, other individuals would have picked them up and transported them. But with the army ants this mutual assistance was sublimated, developed to a quintessence of excellence. If I, seated on the rim, overlooking the whole, had been an all-powerful spirit, gifted with the ability to guide by thought simultaneously all the ants within sight, such guidance could not have bettered the cunning cooperation, the unexpectedly clever anticipation of trouble, the marvelous singleness of purpose and manifold effectiveness exhibited by these astounding creatures.

First, as to the personnel of the army ants. Roughly I divided them into two categories, white-heads and black-heads. The latter were by far the more numerous and, as a rule, were smaller, with less powerful jaws. But this did not mean that the white-heads were all soldiers. Most of them indeed were the hardest workers. Between the great extremes of size in each of these two types, there seemed to exist only a difference of degree. The smallest black-head laborers, only a little more than one-fifth of an inch long, did their bit, flew like bull pups at any prey which showed signs of life, and staggered bravely along with any piece of loot which their short legs could straddle.

The white-heads, twice as large, were the strong men of the community, putting all their activity into the labor, shouldering, pushing, dragging, lifting, singly or in unison. These persons had powerful jaws, but jaws which were stout and scissor-edged. The largest of the white-heads were armed with reaping-hooks, long inwardly-pronged jaws, curved like the tushes of ancient mammoths, too specialized for carrying loads, but well adapted for defense of the most powerful character. Yet, as we shall see, even these were not too proud to work, when occasion demanded it. But their jaws were so enormous that they had to carry themselves very erect, and they could not make quite as good time as the other castes.

All had reddish brown abdomens, with darker thoraxes and white or black heads. These heads bulged on each side like the domes of observatories. Exactly in the center of each dome, looking like the jet-black head of a tiny pin, was the single remaining facet of the eye, the degenerate residue of the hundreds which were present in their ancestors, and which the perfect males and females still possess and look through. Even this single eye is a sham, for its optic nerve dies out before the brain ganglion is reached; so we come to the astounding realization that these ants are totally blind, and carry on all their activities through the sense or senses residing in those marvelous quivering antennæ. Here are beings spending all their lives in ceaseless changing activities, meeting and coping with constantly new conditions, yet wholly blind. Their sense of smell dominates their judgment of substance, and the moment an army ant reached my moccasin he sank jaws and sting deep into the fabric as instinctively and instantly as when he executed the same manœuvers more effectively on my hand.

Keeping this handicap in mind, the achievements of these little creatures assumed a still greater significance, and with renewed interest and appreciation I again surveyed the scene in the amphitheater before me. When the majority of the pit victims had been slain, the process of carrying them up to the surface began. The hordes of ravening ants resolved themselves, as I have said, into five distinct columns of traffic which, inch by inch, fought for a footing up three of the four sides.

Half of the bottom of the pit was a sort of flat table-land several inches higher than the rest, and the first thing the ants did was to carry all their booty to this steppe, in pieces or bodily, some of the unfortunate creatures still protesting weakly as they were dragged along. In fifteen minutes the lowest part of the pit bottom was deserted, and after much hesitation I vaulted down and found a footing reasonably safe from attack.

Two traffic columns had already reached the summit, and the others were forging rapidly ahead. All used a similar method of advance. A group of mixed castes led the way, acting as scouts, sappers, and miners. They searched out every slope, every helpful step or shelf of sand. They took advantage of every hurdle of white grass-roots as a welcome grip which would bind the shifting sand grains. Now and then they had to cross a bare, barren slope with no natural advantages. Behind them pressed a motley throng, some still obsessed with the sapper instinct, widening the trail, tumbling down loose, dangerous grains. Some bore the first-fruits of victory, small ants and roaches which had been the first to succumb. These were carried by one, or at most by two ants, usually with the prey held in the jaws close beneath the body, the legs or hinderpart trailing behind. In this straddling fashion the burden was borne rapidly along, an opposite method from the overhead waving banners of the leaf-cutters.

With these came a crowd of workers, both white and black-headed, and soldiers, all empty-jawed, active, but taking no part in the actual preparation of the trail. This second cohort or brigade had, it seemed to me, the most remarkable functions of any of the ants which I saw during my whole period of observation. They were the living implements of trail-making, and their ultimate functions and distribution were so astounding, so correlated, so synchronized with the activities of all the others that it was difficult not to postulate an all-pervading intelligence, to think of these hundreds and thousands of organisms as other than corpuscles in a dynamic stream of life controlled by some single, outside mind.

Here, then, were scores of ants scrambling up the steep uneven sides, over ground which they had never explored, with unknown obstacles confronting them at every step. To the eye they were ants of assorted sizes, but as they advanced, numbers fell out here and there and remained behind. This mob consisted of potential corduroy, rope-bridges, props, hand-rails, lattices, screens, fillers, stiles, ladders, and other unnamable adjuncts to the successful scaling of these apparently impregnable cliffs. If a stratum of hard sand appeared, on which no impression could be made, a line of ants strung themselves out, each elaborately fixing himself fast by means of jaws and feet. From that moment his feverish activity left him: he became a fixture, a single unit of a swaying bridge over a chasm; a beam, an organic plank, over which his fellows tramped by hundreds, some empty, some heavily laden. If a sudden ascent had to be made, one ant joined himself to others to form a hanging ladder, up which the columns climbed, partly braced against the sandy wall.

At uncertain, unguarded turns a huge soldier would take up his station, with as many functions and duties as a member of the Broadway traffic squad. Stray, wandering ants would be set right by a single twiddle of antennæ; an over-burdened brother would be given a helping jaw and assisted for some distance to the end of his beat. I was especially interested in seeing, again and again, this willingness to help bear the burdens. It showed the remains of an instinct, inhibited by over-development, by ultra-specialization of fighting paraphernalia, still active when opportunity gave it play. At the first hint, by sound or smell, of danger, the big soldier whirled outward and, rearing high on his legs, brandished his mighty blades in mid-air. Here was an ideal pacifist, who could turn his sword into a plowshare at will, and yet keep the former unsheathed for instant use.

When I watched more closely, I detected more delicate gradations of mutual aid. At the same level in two columns of ascent, the same stratum of hard sand was encountered. To one column the sand presented a rough surface which gave good foothold. Here the single line of ants which was ranged along the lower edge of the trail, in lieu of hand-rail, all faced downward, so that the ants passing above them walked partly on the abdomens and partly on the hind legs of their fellows. In the second column, the surface of the sand was smooth, and here the burdened ants found great difficulty in obtaining a foothold. In this instance the supporting gang of ants faced upward, keeping their place solely by their six sturdy legs. This left head and jaws free, and in almost every case they helped the passage of the booty by a system of passing from jaw to jaw, like a line of people handing buckets at a fire. The rightful carriers gave up their loads temporarily and devoted their attention to their own precarious footing.

I learned as much from the failures of this particular formation as from its successes. Once a great segment of a wood-roach was too much for the gallant line clinging to the sides of the pit, and the whole load broke loose and rolled to the bottom. Of the hand-rail squad only two ants remained. Yet in four minutes another line was formed of fresh ants,—ants who had never been to the spot before,—and again the traffic was uninterrupted. I saw one ant deliberately drop his burden, letting it bounce and roll far down to the bottom of the pit, and instantly take his place in the line of living guardrails. The former constituents of the line had clung to the roach segment through all its wild descent, and until it came to rest at the bottom. Without a moment's pause, they all attacked it as if they thought it had come to life, then seized it and began tugging it upward. In a fraction of time, without signal or suggestion or order, the hand-rails had become porters. The huge piece of provender had rolled close to an ascending column on the opposite side of the pit, and up this new trail the bearers started, pulling and pushing in unison, as if they had been droghers and nothing else throughout the whole of their ant-existence.

One climax of mutual assistance occurred near the rim of the pit on a level with my eyes, where one column passed over a surface which had been undermined by heavy rain, and which actually overhung. I watched the overcoming of this obstacle. All the ants which attempted to make their way up at this point lost their footing and rolled headlong to the bottom. By superformicine exertions a single small worker at last won a path to the rim at the top. Around the edge of the pit innumerable ants were constantly running, trying, on their part, to find a way down. The single ant communicated at once with all which came past, and without hesitation a mass of the insects formed at this spot and began to work downward. This could be done only by clinging one to the other; but more and more clambered down this living ladder, until it swayed far out over the vastness of the pit, three inches in length. I had never lost sight of the small worker, who had turned on his tracks and was now near the bottom of the ladder, reaching wildly out for some support—ant, grass, or sand. I was astonished to see that, as the length and consequent weight of the dangling chain increased, the base support was correspondingly strengthened. Ant after ant settled itself firmly on the sand at the top, until a mat of insects had been formed, spread out like animate guy-ropes.

At last the ultimate ant in the rope touched the upraised jaws of the soldier far below. The contact acted like an electric shock. The farthest ant in the guy-rope gang quivered with emotion, a crowd of ants climbed down and another up, and bits of insect and spider prey began to appear from the depths of the pit, over the living carpet suspended from the brim. For an inch the droghers climbed over the bodies braced against the cliff. Then, where the surface became smooth, the dangling chain came into use. Before the rim of the pit was reached, the chain had become a veritable hollow tube of ants, all with heads inward, and through this organic shaft passed the host from the ascending column. But it was far more than any mechanically built tube. When an extra large piece of loot came up, the tube voluntarily enlarged, the swelling passing along until the booty and its bearers emerged at the top.

Within five minutes after this last column was completed, there passed over it, out of the pit, a daddy-long-legs with legs trailing, perhaps the same one which I had seen in the tragic little dance of death. There followed two silvery-gray ants, a wood-roach in two installments, part of a small frog, three roaches, and two beetles. These latter gave a great deal of trouble and tumbled down the cliff again and again.

When all the columns were established and the provision trains in full movement, I leaped out and scouted round for the rest of the army. I found that the pit was only an incident. In all directions lines of ants poured past, carrying booty of all sizes and descriptions. Here and there the huge soldiers walked slowly along the outskirts, directing stragglers, looking for danger, snapping at any roach or strange ant which rushed frantically by, and holding it until it was carried off by nearby workers.

I followed a column over logs and leaves to where it ascended a cecropia tree. A harvest of small arboreal insects was being gleaned high overhead. As I watched, there came a heavy downpour of rain, a typical shower of the tropics, with a scattering of heavy drops out of the full sunshine and then a sudden clouding and a straight deluge for a few minutes. The reaction of the ants was interesting. They did not like the water, and it was comical to see them tumble over one another to get under shelter. Like the doorways of city shops in a shower, every curled-up leaf was packed, and from every crevice of bark projected sundry abdomens and hind legs for which there was no room inside. When the bearer of a large bag of booty found a convenient corner, he backed into it and left his meat sticking out in the rain.

After the shower all came forth at full speed, but for some minutes there was considerable confusion. The sluice of water had evidently washed away much of the scent which stood for guide-posts, directing signs, and pointing hands along the trail. Only after many false starts were the old pathways discovered and again traversed. In one place the ants climbed a huge log and marched along the top for six or seven yards. I timed them carefully and found that on this straightaway track their average speed was two and a half feet in ten seconds. So they covered a mile in three hours and a half, and in all the army ants I have ever watched this rate of speed never slackens; in fact, it frequently greatly increases. When hot on the scent of prey they double their usual gait.

There are as many ludicrous sights to be seen in the ranks of army ants as there are among the banner-decked processions of the leaf-cutters. Along the tree-trunk track came three big white-heads straddling an inch-worm—in this case an inch-and-a-half-worm. They leaned forward and downward, the heads of those behind overlapping the abdomens in front, and they looked for all the world like the riders of an old-fashioned three-seated bicycle, spurting along the trail. Another simile, even more vivid, evoked the vision of some weirdly constructed, elongated myriopod with eighteen legs. After a hard fight, in the course of which I was stung twice, I unseated the trio and took the measuring worm away from them. As I lifted it from where it had fallen, at least fifty ants hurled themselves at the spot, jaws snapping, trembling with violent rage. I walked ten feet away and dropped the worm in the midst of another column, and within an equal number of seconds three new white-heads had mounted it and were hustling it along—the replicas in appearance and method of the first team.

Many species of stranger ants were killed and carried off as food, but now and then I noted a most significant exception. In three different parts of the glade I saw good-sized, pale, flesh-colored ants which walked unharmed in the very ranks of the terrible host. Unharmed they were, but not wholly above suspicion, and their progress was not an easy one. For every unburdened ant which passed leaped at the pale one, antennaed it fiercely for a moment and reluctantly released it. One could read their indecision as they slowly loosened their hold, turning again and again and waving their antennæ as if to make sure that it was not better to act on their suspicion and slay at once. Finally, they always passed on. The pale ones had some strange inaudible password, some sensory parole which protected them. And their total lack of fear showed their knowledge of their immunity. Even with the added sense of sight which they possessed, they chose voluntarily to accept this dubious, reluctantly accorded friendship. But it was probable that, even if they lived in the very community or nest of the army ants, theirs was the hard-earned dependence of neutrals who were liable to be knocked down at a moment's notice, and searched for any strange, inimical scent which would spell instant death.

In one place the army column made a slight détour round a hillock of sandgrains upon which a host of tiny brown ants was laboring. I thought it remarkable that such immunity should be accorded these dwarfs, and I sought the reason. It was forthcoming at once when I gingerly lifted a big soldier with the forceps and dropped him on the ant-hill. What occurred was a replica of the usual army ant scene, but enacted as if viewed through the large end of an opera-glass. Scores of the minute brown chaps rushed forth and for a moment fairly overbore the white-headed giant. Indeed, before he could recover he was dragged partly down a sandy hole. His jaws brandished and champed, but his assailants were so small that they slipped through them unharmed. Many actually seized the jaws themselves and were hurled through the air as they snapped together. Regaining his feet, the great army ant staggered off and, fortunately for him, rolled down a slope into another column of his own kind. Here he freed himself little by little, scraping off the minute fighting browns with the help of two very small workers, whose jaws, being much less in size, were better able to grip the diminutive furies. Their assistance was half-hearted, and the odor of the dead and dying pygmies was distinctly disliked by them. They were apparently well aware of the capabilities of these small cousins, and held them in high respect. This outburst of successful defense on the part of the small ants was unexpected. I glanced back at their hill and saw them unconcernedly piling up grains as if nothing had occurred to disturb them. I wondered if, with senses perfectly attuned, with an enlarging-glass ability of observation, one might not find still lesser communities which would in their turn consider the little brown ants as giants, and on the space of a pin's head attack them and fly at their throats.

A species of silvery-gray ant which was abundant in the glade was an object of special enmity, and even after one of these was killed and being carried along, passing army ants would rush up and give it a vicious, unnecessary nip. One such ant made its escape from the hold of a small worker; but before it had taken ten steps it was actually buried under a rolling mass of army ants. The flying leap with which these athletes make their tackle would delight the heart of any football coach, although their succeeding activities belong rather to savage warfare. Termites, or so-called white ants, are, curiously enough, immune from attack. Yet these slow-moving, fat-bodied creatures would seem first-rate food, and the fight which they could put up would not stand an instant before a concerted rush of battling army ants. The saving character is doubtless odor or taste. I dropped a tunnelful of these insects in the path of the army ants and they were quite ignored, although the black-and-white-headed fellows were terribly angry and excited.

I coveted a small beetle of peculiar pattern which the ants were hurrying along, and in taking it from them I accidentally cut an army ant in two. His abdomen rolled down a small slope and caused considerable panic among his fellows. They formed a ring round it and waved their antennæ in mid-air, the scent of the blood of their own kind causing them to forget hurry and burdens and their normal activities. The front part of the ant seemed but little inconvenienced and endeavored to seize and carry the load it had dropped. Little by little it began to realize that all was not right, and after one or two attempts to turn and investigate, it ran rapidly down the trail. I made a dab at it to put it out of what seems better called inconvenience than misery, but succeeded only in bisecting the thorax, so that there remained the head and front pair of legs. These lost nothing in activity, and by means of the single pair of legs the head rowed itself rapidly along, its antennæ twiddling vigorously those of every ant it met. This was uncanny, a little too much, and I ground the fraction of ant to powder. No wonder the army ant is such a virile creature, endowed with the most extreme emotions, when, with such a small section of its anatomy remaining it can continue to show such astounding activity.

One could study for hours the interactions among the army ants themselves. More than once I saw a good-sized ant transporting one of its fellows, exactly as it would carry a bit of booty. I tried to examine this ant, and to my surprise, both attacked me ferociously. The one which was carried was neither dead, ill, nor disabled, but very much alive. I cannot even suggest an explanation of this phenomenon, as it did not seem an attempt to aid a comrade in distress.

As dusk began to settle down, I found a column of ants which must have discovered and sacked the city of some stranger ants. They were laden with ant-booty: eggs, larvæ, and dead ants by the hundred. It was comprehensible, but what I did not at first understand was a dense line of ants moving solidly in one direction, all laden with large eggs and immature ants, which they were carrying with great care. A large number of the huge soldiers patrolled the outer flanks of the column, more than I had seen with all the other traffic lines together. I realized at last that I was looking at an actual moving of a portion of the army ant household itself. It was guarded and transported with all the care of which these insects were capable. The infant ants rested safely in the great jaws, the same jaws which all day had been busy slashing and biting and tearing, and carrying food for these same infants.

And now the tropical night began to close down and I made my way back to the sandpit. The last of the columns was making its way out, systematically from the bottom up, each ant following in turn. The moment the last bit of prey passed up the column, by some wonderfully delicate and subtile sense, every ant knew of it, and the corduroy rose, the hand-rails unjointed themselves, the ropes unspliced, the embankments dislodged of their own volition, and stepping-stones took to themselves legs. After hours of total inactivity, these sentient paraphernalia of the via formica became, once more, beings surcharged with ceaseless movement, alert and ready to become a useful cog in the next movement of this myriad-minded machine. I jumped down into the pit. The great gold-spotted toad stretched and scratched himself, looked at me, and trembled his throat. I was not an army ant! The millipede cautiously reared its head from the sand and felt timidly about.

I looked out and saw the last of the mighty army disappearing into the undergrowth. I listened and heard no chirp of cricket, nor voice of any insect in the glade. Silence brooded, significant of wholesale death. Only at my feet two ants still moved, a small worker and a great white-headed soldier. Both had been badly disabled in the struggles in the pit, and now vainly sought to surmount even the first step of the lofty cliff. They had been ruthlessly deserted. The rearing of new hosts was too easy a matter for nature to have evolved anything like stretchers or a Red Cross service among these social beings. The impotence of these two, struggling in the dusk, only emphasized the terrible vitality of their distant fellows. As the last twilight of day dimmed, I saw the twain still bravely striving, and now the toad was watching them intently. A poor-me-one called mournfully from a distance, and I walked slowly toward home.