60 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



carefully at this mushroom growth which had ap- 

 peared in a single night, and it was then that my 

 eyes began to perceive and my mind to record, 

 things that my reason besought me to reject. 

 Such phenomena were all right in a dream, or 

 one might imagine them and tell them to children 

 on one's knee, with wind in the eaves — wild tales 

 to be laughed at and forgotten. But this was 

 daylight and I was a scientist; my eyes were in 

 excellent order, and my mind rested after a 

 dreamless sleep ; so I had to record what I saw in 

 that little outhouse. 



This chocolate-colored mass with its myriad 

 ivory dots was the home, the nest, the hearth, the 

 nursery, the bridal suite, the kitchen, the bed and 

 board of the army ants. It was the focus of all 

 the lines and files which ravaged the jungle for 

 food, of the battalions which attacked every liv- 

 ing creature in their path, of the unnumbered 

 rank and file which made them known to every 

 Indian, to every inhabitant of these vast jungles. 



Louis Quatorze once said, ''UEtat, cest moi!'* 

 but this figure of speech becomes an empty, 

 meaningless phrase beside what an army ant 

 could boast, — ''La maison, c'est moir Every 

 rafter, beam, stringer, window-frame and door- 



