176 THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



venture to disturb the peace of his city, and, having once 

 fixed his hold upon his foe, will suffer himself to be torn 

 limb from limb without relaxing his grasp. Advantage is 

 taken of this extraordinary tenacity of grip by some primi- 

 tive peoples, who, if suffering from severe cuts, draw the 

 edges of the wound together and then apply ants, who fix 

 their jaws one on each side of the cut. The bodies of the 

 insects are then nipped off, but the heads retain their grip, 

 and form a perfect suture until the wound is completely 

 healed. 



Well it is for man that the scheme of Nature did not 

 bestow upon the ant bulk as well as wisdom, valour, and 

 industry. Had the ant been only of the size of the domestic 

 cat, he would have been absolutely Lord of Creation. 

 The fishes alone would survive. A single ant hill would 

 furnish an army infinitely more numerous and formidable 

 thap the hosts of Tamerlane or Attila. The earth would 

 shake under their tread ; forests would fall before the power 

 of their jaws ; the elephant himself would be unable to 

 resist their onset. Even now all smaller animals fly in 

 terror at the approach of an ant army, and if overtaken fall 

 victims to their furious assaults. Such an army, were the 

 individuals no larger than mice, would yet be irresistible. 

 Among the many reasons man has for gratitude to Provi- 

 dence, not the least is that the ant was not endowed 

 with bulk in addition to its other gifts. To attain to the 

 full power of its intellect, it requires a warm climate, dif- 

 fering in this respect from man, who suffers intellectually 

 both from the extremes of heat and cold. The ant of 

 temperate regions bears the same relation to the tropical 

 ant that the savage of the tropical zone bears to the civilised 



