SOME APRIL INSECTS. 207 



Every ant out of that enormous multitude may calculate 

 on a certain average duration of life, setting aside risks 

 from battle, birds, and such enemies. Microbes are un- 

 likely to destroy her. Now this is a very extraordinary 

 circumstance. In some manner the ants have found 

 out a way of accommodating themselves to the facts of 

 their existence ; they have fitted themselves in with 

 nature and reached a species of millennium. Are they 

 then more intelligent than man? We have certainly 

 not succeeded in doing this yet ; they are very far ahead 

 of us. Are their eyes, divided into a thousand facets, a 

 thousand times more powerful than our most powerful 

 microscopes, and can they see spores, germs, microbes, 

 or bacilli where our strongest lenses find nothing ? I 

 have some doubts as to whether ants are really shut out 

 of many flowers by hairs pointing downwards in a fringe 

 and similar contrivances. The ant has a singularly 

 powerful pair of mandibles : put one between your shirt 

 and skin and try ; the nip you will get will astonish you. 

 With these they can shear off the legs or even the head 

 of another ant in battle. I cannot see, therefore, why, 

 if they wished, they could not nip off this fringe of hairs, 

 or even sever the stem of the plant. Evidently they do 

 not wish, and possibly they have reasons for avoiding 

 some plants and flowers, which besides honey may 

 contain spores — just as they certainly contain certain 

 larvae, which attach themselves to the bodies of bees. 



Possibly we may yet use the ants or some other clever 

 insects to find out the origin of the fatal parasite which 

 devours the consumptive. Some reason exists for ima- 

 gining that this parasite has something to do with the 

 flora, for phthisis ceases at a certain altitude, and it is 

 very well known that the floras have a marked line of 

 demarcation. Up to a certain height certain flowers 



