THE ARMY ANTS' HOME TOWN 61 



frame, hall-way, room, ceiling, wall and floor, 

 foundation, superstructure and roof, all were 

 ants living ants, distorted by stress, crowded 

 into the dense walls, spread out to widest stretch 

 across tie-spaces. I had thought it marvelous 

 when I saw them arrange themselves as bridges, 

 walks, hand-rails, buttresses, and sign-boards 

 along the columns; but this new absorption of 

 environment, this usurpation of wood and stone, 

 this insinuation of themselves into the province 

 of the inorganic world, was almost too astound- 

 ing to credit. 



All along the upper rim the sustaining struc- 

 ture was more distinctly visible than elsewhere. 

 Here was a maze of taut brown threads stretch- 

 ing in places across a span of six inches, with 

 here and there a tiny knot. These were actually 

 tie-strings of living ants, their legs stretched al- 

 most to the breaking-point, their bodies the in- 

 conspicuous knots or nodes. Even at rest and 

 at home, the army ants are always prepared, for 

 every quiescent individual in the swarm was 

 standing as erect as possible, with jaws wide- 

 spread and ready, whether the great curved ma- 

 hogany scimitars of the soldiers, or the little 

 black daggers of the smaller workers. And with 



