Ants. 173 



right on holding the views of the celebrated John P. 



Robinson. 



"John P. 



Robinson, he 



Sez they didn't know everything down in Judee.'* 



But one day a physician snuggled his ear up against 

 the chest of a scientist named Moggridge, had him 

 breathe hard and say, " Ha! " and advised him to spend 

 the winter some place where it wasn't so cold as in 

 England. There was nothing to be alarmed about, but- 

 one guinea, yes, and don't go out without overshoes. 

 4 Ordered south." When we hear that fateful phrase 

 w r e sigh and cannot help ourselves, for we know the end- 

 ing of that story. But Moggridge was not the kind of 

 man to sit out in the sun at Mentone and wonder whether 

 his cough was really better than it was the day before. 

 He went out on the warm slopes and watched the ants 

 fight. One nest he saw carry on a campaign against 

 another nest from January 18 to March 4, murdering and 

 pillaging and kidnaping baby ants, and otherwise estab- 

 lishing a stable government, when all of a sudden a thrill 

 shot through him. Part of the plunder was seeds ! They 

 were right, after all, Solomon and the Talmud, Plautus 

 and /Elianus. Life was no longer a matter of avoiding 

 draughts and remembering to take the brown medicine 

 every three hours and the white medicine before meals. 

 Pie had something to tell the world, and though he might 

 die before his time, yet he would live forever, perhaps 

 not in the memories of the common herd, but in the 

 memories of the men that he would choose for friends 

 and companions, the men that would know and under- 

 stand. And then, as the sweet spring of Southern 

 France ripened into summer he saw the ants gather their 

 harvest into the garner, just as /Elianus had said they 



