WOOING WITH WINGS 231 



that cannot, on account of immaturity or incompetence, to 

 their fate. 



Eaten raw, the larvae are pungent morsels, or macerated 

 in water in company with relatives distended to the degree 

 of helplessness, form a cordial that is sharp to the palate, 

 scarifying to the throat, and consoling to the stomach 

 replete with the cold and sodden foods with which blacks 

 often have to be content. 



Tetchy and quarrelsome, staccato in action, the warriors 

 of a colony bury their forceps in the skin and stand upon 

 their heads to give all their weight to the attack ; but each 

 individual retains its grip until squashed and crumpled up, 

 and the human being who has suffered the assault com- 

 ments on it in language corresponding with the sensitiveness 

 or otherwise of his skin. Consequently the green tree-ant 

 is not as a rule regarded with any tenderness or considera- 

 tion, and there never existed a green ant which hesitated 

 to attack the greatest man. He is quite as heroic as a bee — 

 though armed much less eiificiently — and far more resentful. 



A brilliant black ant imitates its green cousin in the 

 construction of a leafy dwelling somewhat similar in design 

 but on a smaller scale, and having no apparent weapon of 

 defence, save odour — and not very much of that — adopts a 

 novel plan of protecting its refuge against assaults. How- 

 ever gently the leafy house is touched the denizens set up 

 a violent agitation, the simultaneous efforts of hundreds 

 making a sound quite loud enough to scare away intruders 

 whose senses are attuned to the silence and rustlings of the 

 jungle. The noise, which resembles that which results 

 from the easy agitation of coarse sand in a crisp paper 

 envelope, seems to be caused by the ants kicking or 

 drumming on the sides and partitions of the house, the 

 partitions being composed of a light brown fabric, tense, 

 tough and resonant. 



Wooing with Wings 



Among the many engaging scenes and frolics that are 

 ever taking place along the flounces of the jungle, where 



