CHAPTER XVII 



SOME INSECT EXPERIMENTS 



YONDER near the forest's edge, a neglected, grass-grown 

 wood path winds its silent way into the sombre, shaded 

 depths of the virgin growth. In the center of the path 

 stands a mound of dry, brown earth, protected from Na- 

 ture's elements by the thick, dark foliage above. The mound is nearly 

 three feet in diameter and stands some eighteen inches in height, for 

 all the world like a miniature volcano in a setting of giant trees. 

 Indeed, even the lava seems to be there, pouring downward in an ever- 

 changing stream, as if impatient to destroy some tiny city at the 

 mountain's base. But this is not the eruption of a fairy Vesuvius, 

 which we are witnessing, nor is it even an unusual sight, but simply 

 a great thriving insect city, wherein live some forty thousand mound 

 ants 1 whose unceasing labors cause the whole metropolis to writhe 

 lik streams of molten lava! 



Among the numerous volumes which have been written upon insect 

 life we seldom find one in which the ants are not credited as being the 

 most marvelous of all insects. The actions of these creatures and the 

 deeds which they accomplish would furnish sufficient material to fill 

 many a volume of portly size, and indeed much has been written upon 

 the subject. Marvelous is the manner in which they feed and care for 

 their young and wonderful the loyalty of the subjects to their queen 

 and their city. The storing of proper food for the winter and the 

 capturing of Aphids or "Milch cattle," from which the ants extract 

 a sweet nourishing liquid, are other interesting examples, all of which 



1 Formica exsectoides. 



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