GO TO THE ANT 233 



GO TO THE ANT 



IN the market-place at Santa Fe, in Mexico, peasant 

 women from the neighbouring villages bring in for sale 

 trayfuls of living ants, each about as big and round as a 

 large white currant, and each entirely filled with honey or 

 grape sugar, much appreciated by the ingenuous Mexican 

 youth as an excellent substitute for Everton toffee. The 

 method of eating them would hardly command the appro- 

 bation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals. It is simple and primitive, but decidedly not 

 humane. Ingenuous youth holds the ant by its head and 

 shoulders, sucks out the honey with which the back part is 

 absurdly distended, and throws away the empty body as a 

 thing with which it has now no further sympathy. Maturer 

 age buys the ants by the quart, presses out the honey 

 through a muslin strainer, and manufactures it into a very 

 sweet intoxicating drink, something like shandygaff, as I 

 am credibly informed by bold persons who have ventured 

 to experiment upon it, taken internally. 



The curious insect which thus serves as an animated 

 sweetmeat for the Mexican children is the honey-ant of 

 the Garden of the Gods ; and it affords a beautiful 

 example of Mandeville's charming paradox that personal 

 vices are public benefits vitia privata humana commoda. 

 The honey-ant is a greedy individual who has nevertheless 

 nobly devoted himself for the good of the community by 



