64 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



eight lines of army ants on the ground, converg- 

 ing to the post at my elbow. Each was four or 

 five ranks wide, and the eight lines occasionally 

 divided or coalesced, like a nexus of capillaries. 

 There was a wide expanse of sand and clay, and 

 no apparent reason why the various lines of for- 

 agers should not approach the nest in a single 

 large column. The dividing and redividing 

 showed well how completely free were the col- 

 umns from any individual dominance. There 

 was no control by specific individuals or soldiers, 

 but, the general route once established, the gov- 

 erning factor was the odor of contact. 



The law to pass where others have passed is 

 immutable, but freedom of action or individual 

 desire dies with the malleable, plastic ends of the 

 foraging columns. Again and again came to 

 mind the comparison of the entire colony or army 

 with a single organism; and now the home, the 

 nesting swarm, the focus of central control, 

 seemed like the body of this strange amorphous 

 organism housing the spirit of the army. One 

 thinks of a column of foragers as a tendril with 

 only the tip sensitive and growing and moving, 

 while the corpuscle-like individual ants are 

 driven in the current of blind instinct to and fro, 



