PROCEEDINGS, 1918 



The last I shall mention, illustrates a curious limitation of 

 this wonderful little creature. A colony home had become 

 untenable, and workers had gone forth in different directions 

 to locate a suitable spot for a new city. One worker at length 

 found a satisfactory place, and, returning by the roundabout 

 route she had come, seized another in her jaws and bore it to 

 the spot. The two then returned and seized two more and so 

 the process continued until the whole colony had been trans- 

 planted. 



Mr. President, this paper only glances in here and there 

 upon the life of a little neighbor of ours, but perhaps I have said 

 enough to interest some one who will become a real student of 

 her ways. I shall close with a little personal word. At times 

 while refreshing my information for this little sketch, the hour 

 has grown late, and my head has begun to droop in spasmodic 

 nods. Then suddenly, into my fast-benumbing consciousness 

 has come a mighty voice from a far away land and time: "Go 

 to the ant, thou sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, 

 which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat 

 in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest," and I 

 have realized that somebody in Solomon's day, possibly the 

 great and wise king himself, had lain beside an ant hill and 

 watched and wondered, and that the ant he saw then, three 

 thousand years ago, was just the same busy, provident little 

 creature that we have tried to watch ourselves, in our so differ- 

 ent day. 



