ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1673 



tragic little dance of death. There followed 

 two silvery-gray ants, a wood-roach in two in- 

 stallments, part of a small frog, three roaches 

 and two beetles. These latter gave a great deal 

 of trouble and tumbled down the cliff again and 

 again. 



When the tropical night began to close down, 

 the last of the columns were making their way 

 out. systematically from the bottom up, each ant 

 following in turn. The moment the last bit of 

 prey passed up the column, by some wonder- 

 fully delicate and subtle sense, every ant knew 

 of it. and the corduroy rose, the hand-rails un- 

 jointed themselves, the ropes unspliced, the em- 

 bankments dislodged of their own volition, and 

 stepping-stones took to themselves legs. After 

 hours of total inactivity, these sentient para- 

 phernalia of the via formica became, once more, 

 beings surcharged with ceaseless movement, 

 alert and ready to become a useful cog in the 

 next movement of this myriad-minded machine. 

 I jumped down into the pit. The great gold- 

 spotted toad stretched and scratched himself, 

 looked at me and trembled his throat. I was 

 not an army ant. 



I looked out and saw the last of the mighty 

 army disappearing into the undergrowth. I 

 listened and heard no chirp of cricket, no voice 

 of any insect in the glade. Silence brooded, 

 significant of wholesale death. Only at my feet 

 two ants still moved, a small worker and a great 

 white-headed soldier. Both had been badly dis- 

 abled in the struggles in the pit. and now vainly 

 sought to surmount even the first .step of the 

 lofty cliff. They had been ruthlessly deserted. 

 The rearing of new hosts was too easy a matter 

 for nature to have evolved anything like 

 stretchers or a Red Cross service among these 

 social beings. The impotence of these two, 

 struggling in the dusk, only emphasized the ter- 

 rible vitality of their distant fellows. As the 

 last twilight of day dimmed, I saw the twain 

 still bravely striving, and now the toad was 

 watching them intently. 



DEATH OE THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS 



On the night of August 27 the Zoological 



Park sustained the greatest loss in its history. 



thus far. Our most valuable animal, the great 



^^L 



Indian rhinoceros. Mogul, was found dead in 

 his corral, quite without any visible illness, and 

 practically without a struggle. On the previous 

 day he had missed but one meal. 



The autopsy that was made by Dr. D. J. 

 Mangan disclosed the fact that the death of 

 Mogul was due directly to carditis, to which 

 other heart troubles contributed. 



Mogul was a full-grown male specimen of 

 Rhinoceros unicornis, and one of the only three 

 specimens of that species known in captivity. 

 He was caught in Kashmir in 1906, and. having 

 reached the Zoological Park in 1907. he had 

 been on exhibition here for eleven years. His 

 weight was 2.620 pounds. When only one year 

 of age his cost to us was $6,000, and ever since 

 he attained full maturity he has been valued by 

 the Zoological Society at $25,000. 



Both the skin and complete skeleton of Mogul 

 have been presented to the American Museum 

 of Natural History. 



