148 
“ INTERVIEWING ” AN ANT. 
the merely secondary details—such as the scanty hairs with which the 
ant is provided. Finally, its mobility would not have suffered me to 
keep it in the focus of the microscope ; but the lens, as easily shifted as 
itself, followed it in all its motions. 
Not, however, without some difficulty. It was lively, alert, dis¬ 
quieted, and impatient to quit the table. I was looking at it in the 
middle of the sheet, when it was already nearly at the edge. I was 
obliged to etherize it a little, so as to stupefy it, and render it less 
uneasy. 
It appeared very clean, and highly varnished. Though a neuter, 
and not a female, its belly w T as rather large, and was joined to the chest 
by two small swellings. From the chest the head, which was strong 
and nearly round, detached itself cleanly and distinctly. 
This head, seen as it were en masse , resembled a bird’s. But instead 
of a beak it had a circular prolongation, in which, on attentive examina¬ 
tion, I detected the reunion of two tiny crescents joined at the point. 
These were its teeth, or mandibles, which do not operate like ours, from 
above to below, but horizontally and sideways. The insect employs its 
mandibles for the most widely different purposes; they are not only its 
weapons and instruments of mastication, but the tools it uses for every 
art, supplying the place of hands in masonry, plastering, carving, and 
in lifting and transplanting burdens which are frequently of enormous 
weight. 
It was well for it that its body was wrapped in a complete coat of 
mail. The ether affected it but slightly, and only stupefied it. After 
a moment’s immobility it partly recovered, and made a few movements 
like those of an intoxicated person, or as if it were affected with a 
fit of vertigo. It seemed to say, “ Where am I ? ” and endeavoured to 
make out the ground where it was walking, the great sheet of white 
paper. It attempted a few tottering steps, tumbling first on one side 
and then on the other. It carried before it a couple of instruments 
which at first I took to be feet, but which I found, on more careful 
inspection, were wholly different. 
They sprang from a point near either eye, and, like the eyes, were 
evidently instruments of observation. These antennae, as they are 
