THE ARMY ANTS’ HOME TOWN 59 
Number Five.* I was wondering whether I 
should ever see the army ants in any guise other 
than that of seouting, battling searchers for liv- 
ing prey, when a voice of the jungle seemed to 
hear my unexpressed wish. The sharp, high 
notes of white-fronted antbirds—those white- 
crested watchers of the ants—came to my ears, 
and I left my table and followed up the sound. 
Physically, I merely walked around the bunga- 
low and approached the edge of the jungle at a 
point where we had erected a small outhouse a 
day or two before. But this two hundred feet 
might just as well have been a single step through 
quicksilver, hand in hand with Alice, for it took 
me from a world of hyoids and syrinxes, of vials 
and lenses and clean-smelling xylol, to the home 
of the army ants. 
The antbirds were chirping and hopping about 
on the very edge of the jungle, but I did not have 
to go that far. AsI passed the doorless entrance 
of the outhouse I looked up, and there was an im- 
mense mass of some strange material suspended 
in the upper corner. It looked like stringy, 
chocolate-colored tow, studded with hundreds of 
tiny ivory buttons. I came closer and looked 
1See Jungle Peace, p. 211. 
