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GIANT LAND SNAIL 



upward toward light and warmth. Thus had 

 the great CaneUa do Matto itself begun life. 

 In my war-bag were a score of potential forest 

 giants doomed to death in the salt ocean. 



The middle laj^er, finally, was the all-impor- 

 tant stratum. In it lived four-fifths of the 

 small folk. This was composed of debris in 

 full course of disintegration. Leaves, some- 

 times partlj- green, usually brown or black, nuts 

 half decayed, twigs half rotten. All still pre- 

 served their form, althongh some were ready to 

 fall apart at a touch. All were soaked through, 

 or at least damp and soggy. Often four or 

 five leaves would be stuck together, stitched with 

 the threads of fungi. In such a haven was 

 always a host of living organisms. 



Some of the half decayed leaves were very 

 beautiful. Vistas of pale, bleached fungus lace 

 trailed over the rich mahoganj^ colored tissues, 

 studded here and there with bits of glistening, 

 transparent quartz. Here I had many hints of 

 a world of life beyond the power of the unaided 

 eye. And here too the grosser fauna scrambled, 

 hopped or wriggled. Everywhere were tiny 

 chrysalids and cocoons, many empty. Now and 

 then a plaque of eggs, almost microscopic, 

 showed veriest pin-pricks where still more min- 

 ute parasites had made their escape. Contract- 

 ing the field of vision to this world where leaves 

 were fields and fungi loomed as forests, com- 

 petition, the tragedies, the mystery lessen not at 

 all. Minute seeds mimicked small beetles in 

 shape and in exquisite tracery of patterns ; small 

 beetles curled up and to the eye became minute 

 seeds of beautiful design. Bits of bark simu- 

 lated insects, a patch of fungus seemed a worm, 

 and in their turn insects and worms became 

 transmuted optically into immobile vegetation. 

 Scores of little creatures were wholly invisible 



until the}' moved. Here and there I discovered 

 a lifeless boulder of emerald or turquoise — the 

 metallic cuirass of some long dead beetle. 



Some of the scenes which appeared as I 

 picked over the mold, unfolded suddenly after 

 an upheavel of debris, were startling. When 

 we had worked with the lens for many minutes, 

 all relative comparisons with the surrounding- 

 world were lost. Instead of looking down from 

 on high, a being apart, with titanic brush of 

 bristles ready to capture the fiercest of these 

 jungle creatures, I, like Alice in Wonderland, 

 felt mj'self growing smaller, becoming an on- 

 looker perhaps hiding behind a tiny leaf or twig. 

 This feeling became more and more real as we 

 labored day after day, and it added greatly to 

 the interest and excitement. Close by would 

 appear, under the lens, piles of great logs and 

 branches protruding from a heaped-up bank of 

 precious stones. Mauve, yellow, orange and 

 cerulean hues played over the scene. Over a 

 steep hill came a horned, ungainly creature with 

 huge proboscis and eight legs, and shining, liver- 

 colored body, all paunch, sjootted with a sickly 

 hue of yellow. It was studded with short stiff 

 bristles, and was apparently as large as a wart- 

 hog and much more ugly. It was a mite, one 

 of the biting mites of the tropics, but under 

 the lens a terrible monster. I put one of these 

 on my arm to see if its bite corresponded to that 

 of the legions of macuins which tortured us daily 

 in the jungle. Under the lens I saw the hideous 

 creature stop in its awkward progress and as 

 it prepared to sink its proboscis I involuntarily 

 flinched, so fearful a thing seemed about to 

 happen. 



In the middle layer, that of most active 

 change, and surcharged with life, ants were 

 abundant, together with small colonies of ter- 



NEST OF SAUBA ANTS 



