34 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Bus 



slow motion. How it manages to crawl is really a wonder. If 

 it were a single animal, there would be no mystery about it ; 

 but it must be remembered that it is an aggregation of sepa- 

 rate animals, each distinct in itself, though preserving a connec- 

 tion with all the others. To all appearance these animals have 

 no particular organs of sensation, and their tentacles are merely 

 outspread as nets to entangle any particles of food that may 

 happen to float against them. It seems almost incredible that 

 beings thus constituted should have any power of concerted 

 action. Yet that such is the case is evident from the fact that 

 the aggregated mass is able to crawl about, for unless the 

 multitudinous animals agreed to move consentaneously, the entire 

 mass would remain still. To prove that there is really a concerted 

 action, and that the movement is not involuntary, it will be 

 seen that the Cristatella does clearly choose the direction in 

 which it goes, inasmuch as it shuns the dark and shady places, 

 and loves to crawl in shallow water, where it can enjoy the 

 light and heat of the sunbeams. This oddity is typical of 

 Bumbledom. Bumbledom is one of the queerest forms of 

 nineteenth-century social life. Considering the elements of 

 stupidity, vulgarity, obstinacy, and jobbery of which it is agglo- 

 merated, it is wonderful that' it makes any progress at all. Yet 

 it does so ; and it is remarkable that before it can take one 

 single step even to secure benefits for itself, all the separate 

 heads of stupidity, obstinacy, vulgarity, and jobbery have to 

 concur in the movement. Of course its pace is dismally slow ; 

 and since it resembles the Cristatella mucedo in so much, it 

 would be satisfactory if we could add that, like its prototype, 

 it is directed away from " shady places, and always towards the 

 lisht" F. 



Business Aptitude. 



It is a noteworthy fact that an ant will always avail itself of 

 any accidental circumstance that may assist it in building. One 

 of these industrious little beings has been observed to take advan- 

 tage of some straws that happened to cross one another, and to 

 convert them into beams wherewith the ceiling of its home could 

 be supported, depositing little clay pellets in the angles formed 



