Do you like accounts of battles? Here is one for you. I shall have to
tell of a well-disciplined army, and some hard fighting, as well as of
a victory.
The scene is a quiet country district, with fields and hedge-rows, not
looking a bit like war and bloodshed, and the time is a summer
afternoon, hot, for it is July, and a haze is over the mountains,
which rise a little way behind, as silent witnesses of the fray. The
sun begins to decline, and as the air grows cooler the army has orders
to start. There is a short delay of preparations, and then the
warriors pour forth; not in confusion, but in a compact, unbroken
column, each keeping to the ranks in perfect order, and never
diverging from them. At first the army follows the high road, but ere
long it passes through an opening in the hedge, and crosses the field
on the other side. Still the soldiers march on, never hindered, never
straggling out of place. It must have been a clever commander-in-chief
to have trained them into such admirable obedience.
Presently a fortress rises before them--_that_ is the object of their
expedition; rather, it is something within the citadel that they are
sent to get, and have it they _will_. Not without a struggle, though,
for the enemy is on guard, and when he sees the hostile army
approaching, he sallies out to battle. He has no idea of surrendering
without a fight for it.
The invaders gather up their forces and charge bravely up the hill,
and in an instant, hand to hand, or something very like it, the foes
are locked together in desperate conflict. Neither have they any guns,
but they carry sharp weapons with them, and soon the field is strewn
with the dead and dying.
The fight thickens--the issue is doubtful, but not long--the defenders
are routed, and the assailants press forward to the citadel. Most
skillful are they, for with neither cannon nor battering-rams they
speedily make a breach in the walls, and in they rush, pouring through
the street and lanes of the devoted city. Yet they do not destroy
it--they do not kill the inhabitants--they do not even stay within the
walls so hardly won. In a very short space of time they return as they
came, save that each bears a portion of the spoil for which they came.
They form in order once again, they march in line, they regain their
own quarters, but each one carrying--would you believe it?--a _young
slave_.
[Illustration: {ANTS HEADING OUT ON AN EXPEDITION.}]
Yes, the army did not care to conquer the strange city; the expedition
was organized solely and entirely that they might steal the young and
bring them up in their own colony as slaves. For, through the long
influence of evil habits, the race to which these warriors belong have
lost their natural powers, and so have now to be waited on, fed, and
altogether taken care of by its slaves. With food before them they
would starve unless the slaves put it into their mouths.
If they want to change their abode, the slaves must make the new
habitation ready, and then carry their masters on their backs to reach
it. If the children have to be taken care of, the slaves must be the
nurses. In fact, _fighting_ is the one single thing they _can_ do, and
that, as we have seen, they do well. As the supply of slaves is
necessary to their existence, every now and then they have to go and
help themselves in the way we have just seen them do; and though the
idea of slavery is abhorrent to every mind, we must allow that they
are brave soldiers, and under excellent discipline.
Now, can you tell me who the soldiers are? Go back to your history
stories and think. Some old Roman race, perhaps, or the early
inhabitants of Britain, when people knew no better? Or some tribe of
savages in America, or the South Sea islands at the present time? Nay,
you must guess again, or shall I tell you? Yes, you give it up. Well,
then, it is a people "not strong;" small and insignificant, yet wise,
for this is what the Bible says, "Go to the ANT, consider her ways and
be wise."--Prov. vi:10.
This race of warriors is none other than the slave-keeping ant,
(_Polyergus rufescens_). I do not think you would meet with it in our
woods, but in Switzerland and other countries it is common. Huber, who
wrote so much about bees and ants, first witnessed an attack near
Geneva. I should tell you that the young which they carry off are the
larva or young grubs, which, transferred to the nests of the
conquerors, soon become ants, and live the rest of their lives in
serving them, and waiting on them, as slaves or servants would their
masters.
How extraordinary! Do they pine for their own kind? Are they happy in
their bondage? We do not know, but as far as we can judge they render
a willing and cheerful service, forgetting themselves in what they do
for others. Then, of course, they are happy; we need not repeat the
question; we are only lost in wonder at this strange and interesting
page in Nature's book.