THE WAYS AND MEANS OF ANTS. 827 



" They can not possibly walk over it," this sapient scientist de- 

 clared. I spread it in liberal measure around the barrel, but, 

 alas ! for newspaper science ; it is a positive fact that before I 

 had finished my circling wall of Cayenne pepper these little black 

 imps were racing over it by hundreds. I gave it up. There was 

 nothing to do but to build a low table, put the legs in cans of 

 kerosene oil, and keep on it the barrel of sugar and all other 

 provisions that I wished to protect against these cunning little 

 marauders. Since then I have had no further trouble with them, 

 save in one or two instances whe're the kerosene was allowed to 

 evaporate. So far as I know, this particular species of ant is 

 rarely found at least, gives no trouble here in the country. It 

 seems to be especially partial to " city life." 



But to return to the ant conference over the dead body of the 

 anolis. When I first saw them, a hundred or so of these little 

 " racehorse " ants were scampering about in the most fussy and 

 excited way. Two little fellows would meet, cross antennae, and 

 start off at a lightning pace, to repeat the performance with the 

 next one they met. No doubt they had some plan and were really 

 talking over the matter ; but apparently it was just an indistin- 

 guishable jumble of black imps racing up and down without 

 rhyme or reason. After watching for a moment this curiously 

 involved but seemingly aimless dance, I left to attend to other 

 matters. Returning in the course of half an hour, I saw to my 

 surprise that the dead chameleon had apparently come to life, 

 and was crawling over the edge of the chair seat. A little closer 

 inspection, however, showed that the revival was only apparent, 

 and that these little Sandows were actually dragging off the dead 

 body of the anolis. This was so astonishing that I naturally gave 

 the matter a little closer attention. It was very much as though 

 a score of men should be caught picking up a big church and 

 walking off with it, or half a dozen fishermen should shoulder a 

 whale and carry it to market ! 



In order to estimate as nearly as possible what these ants were 

 really doing, I placed the body of the dead lizard on the scale pan 

 of a Becker analytical balance, and found that it weighed eight 

 hundred and ninety-six milligrammes. Ten of the ants weighed 

 exactly four milligrammes and a half. This, of course, gave a 

 weight of nine twentieths of a milligramme for each ant. Thus 

 it will be seen that these little insect Samsons were actually drag- 

 ing off an animal almost two thousand times as large as them- 

 selves (exactly nineteen hundred and ninety-one times) ! 



How did they do it ? To test the matter, I placed the dead 

 anolis back in the wooden chair seat where I first found him. 

 Watch in hand, I awaited events. Not an ant was in sight. One 

 minute passed, nearly two, when a solitary scout made his ap- 



