BRITISH FERTILITY. 199 



of his glutinous wrath upon them till he had formed 

 quite a rampart of cemented and helpless ants about 

 him ; fresh ones constantly coming up laid hold of 

 the barricade with their jaws, and were often hung 

 that way. I lingered half an hoar or more to see the 

 issue, but was finally compelled to come away before 

 the closing scene. I presume the ants finally tri- 

 umphed. The snail had nearly exhausted its ammu- 

 nition ; each new broadside took more and more time 

 and was less and less effective ; while the ants had 

 unlimited resources, and could make bridges of their 

 sunken armies. But how they finally freed them- 

 selves and their mound of that viscid, sloughing mon- 

 ster I should be glad to know. 



But it was not these incidents that impressed me 

 so much as the numbers and the animation of the 

 ants, and their raiding, buccaneering propensities. 

 When I came to London I could not help thinking of 

 the ant-hill I had seen in the North. This, I said, is 

 the biggest ant-hill yet. See the great steam high- 

 ways, leading to all points of the compass ; see the 

 myriads swarming, jostling each other in the streets, 

 and overflowing all the surrounding country. See 

 the under-ground tunnels and galleries and the over- 

 ground viaducts ; see the activity and the supplies, 

 the whole earth the hunting-ground of these insects 

 and rustling with their multitudinous stir. One may 

 be pardoned, in the presence of such an enormous 

 aggregate of humanity as London shows, for think- 

 ing of insects. Men and women seem cheapened 



