THE ARMY ANTS' HOME TOWN 83 



running column with a spray of ammonia and 

 found that it created merely temporary incon- 

 venience, the ants running back and forming a 

 new trail. Formaline was more effective, so I 

 sprayed the nest-swarm with a fifty-per-cent solu- 

 tion, strong enough, one would think, to harden 

 the very boards. It certainly created a terrible 

 commotion, and strings of the ants, two feet long, 

 hung dangling from the nest. The heart of the 

 colony came into view, with thousands of eggs 

 and larvse, looking like heaps of white rice-grains. 

 Every ant seized one or the other and sought 

 escape by the nearest way, while the soldiers still 

 defied the world. The gradual disintegration re- 

 vealed an interior meshed like a wasp's nest, 

 chambered and honeycombed with living tubes 

 and walls. Little by little the taut guy-ropes, 

 lathes, braces, joists, all sagged and melted to- 

 gether, each cell-wall becoming dynamic, now ex- 

 panding, now contracting; the ceilings vibrant 

 with waving legs, the floors a seething mass of 

 jaws and antenna. By the time it was dark, the 

 swarm was dropping in sections to the floor. 



On the following morning new surprises 

 awaited me. The great mass of the ants had 

 moved in the night, vi^nishing w^ith every egg and 



