192 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
more subtle than the visible Attas and their ma- 
terial nest. Whether I go to the ant as slug- 
gard, or myrmocologist, or accidentally, via Pter- 
odactyl Pups, a day spent with them invariably 
leaves me with my whole being concentrated on 
this mysterious Atta Ego. Call it Vibration, 
Aura, Spirit of the nest, clothe ignorance in 
whatever term seems appropriate, we cannot 
deny its existence and power. 
As with the Army ants, the flowing lines of 
leaf-cutters always brought to mind great arter- 
ies, filled with pulsating, tumbling corpuscles. 
When an obstruction appeared, as a fallen leaf, 
across the great sandy track, a dozen, or twenty 
or a hundred workers gathered—like leucocytes 
—and removed the interfering object. If I in- 
jured a worker who was about to enter the nest, 
I inoculated the Atta organism with a pernicious, 
foreign body. Even the victim himself was dimly 
aware of the law of fitness. Again and again 
he yielded to the call of the nest, only to turn 
aside at the last moment. From a normal link 
in the endless Atta chain, he had become an out- 
cast—snapped at by every passing ant, self-ban- 
ished, wandering off at nightfall to die some- 
where in the wilderness of grass. When well, 
