ABIDING CITIES 201 



the final intellectual and moral supremacy of a 

 race so much as the need for tending and care- 

 fully guarding the young ; the more complete the 

 dependence of the offspring upon their elders, the 

 finer and higher the ultimate development. 



Ants are likewise great domesticators of various 

 other animals ; indeed, as I have said before, 

 they keep many more kinds of flocks and herds 

 in confinement than we ourselves do. There is 

 a funny little pallid creature, called Beckia, an 

 active, bustling small thing, remotely resembling 

 a minute earwig-larva, which runs in and out 

 among the ants in great numbers, keeping its 

 antennae always in a state of perpetual vibra- 

 tion. The nests also harbour a queer, armour- 

 plated white wood-louse, whose long Latin-German 

 name I mercifully spare you ; and this strange 

 beast toddles about quite familiarly among the 

 ants in the galleries. Both kinds must have been 

 developed in ants' nests from darker animals ; 

 and both are blind, from long residence in the 

 dark underground tunnels which they never quit ; 

 their lightness of colour and the disappearance 

 of their eyes tend alike to show that they and 

 their ancestors have resided for countless ages in 

 the homes of the ants. Yet no ant ever seems 

 to take the slightest notice of them. Still, there 

 they are, and the ants tolerate their presence ; 

 while an unauthorised interloper, as Sir John 

 Lubbock remarks, would at once be set upon 

 and killed. The accomplished entomologist in 

 question suggests that they may perhaps act as 



