A TOUR THROUGH A TEXAS ANT-HILL. 271 



AVheu llic ainui^einent which this little episode pi'O- 

 diiced liad subsided, I resumed : 



"At first I contented myself witli looking for these 

 gates in the near vicinity of the central mound or bed, 

 but I soon found that there were many more openings. 

 Indeed, one scarcely knew where he might stumble 

 upon a group of the little miners crowding in busy 

 groups out of holes in the grass, cai'rying pellets of 

 earth, the product of their underground excavations. 

 I never saw any but the smaller forms or minims en- 

 gaged in this service of digging. They were night 

 workers, and at times, as I moved over the ground 

 thirty or forty feet from the central live-oak mound, I 

 would see shining in the lantern-light among the grass 

 a white ' dumping ' which showed where a bevy of 

 masons w^ere at work. They had tapped the white 

 adobe clay that lies several feet underneath the upper 

 soil, and the nature of the pellets which the}' were cart- 

 ing out showed that they were cutting rooms and gal- 

 leries in that stratum. The accumulation outside the 

 opening presented quite the appearance of a mimic 

 railroad dumping, with a gang of laborers at work ; the 

 minims issued from the cavernous shadows trembling 

 under the weight of the white pellets borne before and 

 above their heads, crossed the heap until the edge was 

 reached, and then ' dumped ' their load. It was quite 

 a comical sight to see some of them at this point. 

 They raised themselves upon their hind legs, thrust 

 their heads over the edge, and with a saucy jerk flung 

 down the bit of clay. Others would put a fore-paw to 



