WITH ARMY ANTS 237 



paraphernalia of the via formica became, once 

 more, beings surcharged with ceaseless move- 

 ment, alert and ready to become a useful cog 

 in the next movement of this myriad-minded 

 machine. I jumped down into the pit. The 

 great gold-spotted toad stretched and scratched 

 himself, looked at me, and trembled his throat. 

 I was not an army ant! The millipede cau- 

 tiously reared its head from the sand and felt 

 timidly about. 



I looked out and saw the last of the mighty 

 army disappearing into the undergrowth. I 

 listened and heard no chirp of cricket, nor voice 

 of any insect in the glade. Silence brooded, 

 significant of wholesale death. Only at my feet 

 two ants still moved, a small worker and a great 

 white-headed soldier. Both had been badly dis- 

 abled in the struggles in the pit, and now vainly 

 sought to surmount even the first step of the 

 lofty cliff. They had been ruthlessly deserted. 

 The rearing of new hosts was too easy a matter 

 for nature to have evolved anything like stretch- 

 ers or a Red Cross service among these social 

 beings. The impotence of these two, strugghng 

 in the dusk, only emphasized the terrible vitality 

 of their distant fellows. As the last twilight 



