272 
THE CLOD AND ITS TENANTS. 
cealed in a gooseberry-bush, dreaming and listening. The strains he 
hears,—the lively songs of the warblers, the voices of love and mater¬ 
nity,—augment, I believe, his sadness; so much so, that here, in the 
open air, under the blue sky, enjoying a relative degree of freedom, he 
loses his appetite, and will eat no longer. We bethought ourselves of 
giving him his natural diet, and of feeding him with the insects on 
which he lives in the woods. But here is another difficulty. Who 
would not shrink from hunting after and carrying living victims to be 
devoured ? We preferred to give him insects in futuro, the eggs of 
insects, and inert sleeping nymph se. We carried on a traffic in them 
at Fontainebleau, where our aristocratic pheasants, a feudal race, do 
not deign to eat anything but ants’ eggs. 
On the evening of the 8th of June, there was brought to me from 
the forest a great clod of earth, mixed with dry twigs, and especially 
with tiny debris of the Northern trees, such as the needles of the firs, 
or little prickly leaves resembling thorns. 
In the midst, the inhabitants pell-mell, of every size and grade, eggs, 
larvrn, nymphae, diminutive artisans, great ants, which seemed to be 
warriors and defenders; finally, a few females which had just assumed 
their wedding garments, the wings which they wear for the moment of 
love. Thus it turned out to be a very complete specimen of the re¬ 
public, varied, but well distinguished by one identical sign,—all this 
brownish-coloured populace having on their corselets a dull red spot. 
As for the classes and professions of the ants, they were easily charac¬ 
terized by their very habitations, notwithstanding the general confusion. 
They were carpenter-ants, of the species which prop the upper stories 
of their buildings with timber framework. 
Though their situation was so completely altered, my ants were in 
no wise prostrated. They continued their different tasks, of which the 
principal was, to protect the eggs and nymph se from the action of a too 
powerful sun. 
The general commotion had flung them out of their subterranean 
cradles, and exposed them on the surface. The little ants busied 
themselves actively in rectifying the disorder. The great ones went 
and came, and circled about a great earthen vase which contained the 
