166 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
seventy yards away it joined the spot where I 
had first seen my friend. So, with occasional 
spurts, he had done two hundred and ten feet 
in thirty minutes, and this in spite of the fact 
that he had picked up a supercargo. 
Two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen, 
under the proper stimulus, invariably result in 
water; two and two, considered calmly and with- 
out passion, combine into four; the workings of 
instinct, especially in social insects, is so mechan- 
ical that its results can almost be demonstrated 
in formula; and yet here was my Atta leaf- 
carrier burdened with a minim. The worker At- 
tas vary greatly in size, as a glance at a populous 
trail will show. They have been christened mac- 
rergates, desmergates and micrergates; or we 
may call the largest Maxims, the average middle 
class Mediums, and the tiny chaps Minims, and 
all have more or less separate functions in the 
ecology of the colony. The Minims are replicas 
in miniature of the big chaps, except that their 
armor is pale cinnamon rather than chestnut. 
Although they can bite ferociously, they are too 
small to cut through leaves, and they have very 
definite duties in the nest; yet they are found 
