86 Field- Labourers 



The exterior is, ihdeed, brick-like or stone-lijce in its 

 hardness, but with all its strength it must give way at 

 last beneath the fury of the tropical rains, which 

 continue off and on for two or three months at a time, 

 and thus the soil is returned to the earth enriched by 

 its admixture with animal matter. 



Ants, true ants, as well as white ants, abound every- 

 where within the tropics, but they also do a large 

 amount of work outside, though their numbers gradually 

 diminish as we go further and further north and 

 south. 



There are * ant-cities ' in Pennsylvania, each of which 

 contains more than i,6oo nests of various size, the 

 largest being fifty-eight feet round the base and forty- 

 two inches high, with galleries some sixty feet long 

 leading to the feeding grounds. 



The muscular power of these ants is truly wonderful. 

 The loads they carry are twenty-five times their own 

 weight, and they carry them what, for their size, is an 

 enormous distance. It is as if a man of ordinary size 

 were to carry a weight of 4,000 pounds from the bottom 

 of a coalpit to the top of the Great Pyramid. And they 

 have not merely to carry these loads, but first to prepare 

 them. 



The ant begins work by scratching with her forelegs 

 like a dog ; later on she bites, cuts, or twists off pellets 

 of earth, during which process she often works like a 

 collier on her back, and then she compresses the 

 particles into a ball and carries them out. The only 

 implements she has for her work are her mandibles, 

 or first pair of jaws, which are placed outside her 

 mouth, each jaw being furnished with seven teeth. 

 These powerful jaws serve as pick, shovel, crowbar. 



