THE ARMY ANTS' HOME TOWN 85 



duced a quantity of fine sawdust, which was 

 sprinkled over the larvse. I had made a parti- 

 tion of a bit of a British officer's tent which I had 

 used in India and China, made of several layers 

 of colored canvas and cloth. The ants found 

 a loose end of this, teased it out and unraveled 

 it, so that all the larvae near by were blanketed 

 with a gay, parti-colored covering of fuzz. 



All this strange work was hurried and car- 

 ried on under great excitement. The scores of 

 big soldiers on guard appeared rather ill at ease, 

 as if they had wandered by mistake into the 

 wrong department. They sauntered about, 

 bumped into larva, turned and fled. A constant 

 stream of workers from the nest brought hun- 

 dreds more larvse; and no sooner had they been 

 planted and debris of sorts sifted over them, 

 than they began spinning. A few had already 

 swathed themselves in cocoons exceedingly thin 

 coverings of pinkish silk. As this took place 

 out of the nest, in the jungle they must be cov- 

 ered with wood and leaves. The vital necessity 

 for this was not apparent, for none of this debris 

 was incorporated into the silk of the cocoons, 

 which were clean and homogeneous. Yet the 

 hundreds of ants gnawed and tore and labored 



