_Uncle Philip tells the Boys about Ants that go to War and
fight Battles; and about some that are Thieves, and have Slaves._
"Well, my lads, how do you do to-day?"
"Very well, Uncle Philip, we thank you. And we wish to let you know that
we kept our promise to learn our lessons. Our teacher was very well
satisfied with every one of us."
"That is well, boys. I am truly glad to hear this from you: and I make
no doubt that you also felt a great deal happier than you would have
done had you neglected to learn your lessons. Did you not?"
"Oh yes, Uncle Philip, much happier; and far more cheerful and
good-natured."
"Such are apt to be the feelings, boys, of those who have done their
_duty_. I am verily persuaded that there is no such thing as real, solid
happiness in this world, but in that man who acts from a sense of duty.
His is true peace, because it is 'the peace of God.' I do not say, boys,
that a man, even when he does his duty, _always_ feels comfortable or
happy _at once_; but he will be more apt to feel so than if he did not
do his duty: and I do say that no man who does not act from a sense of
duty, is likely to feel any thing like happiness very often or very
long."
"Then, Uncle Philip, a man who wishes to be happy will try in the first
place to find out what his duty is."
"To be sure, he will; and he need not try very long either, if he really
wishes to know it. The will of God, boys, is at the bottom of all our
duties; and an honest man, yes, or boy either, can commonly tell what
God will think to be right or wrong in his conduct. You know where a
great many of our duties are very plainly written down for us; do you
not?"
"Oh yes, sir; in the New Testament, which tells us of what our Saviour
said and did."
"True. And what our Saviour commanded, boys, God commanded; for He is
God. But besides this, when it is not exactly written down in the New
Testament what we should do, still if we will think, we shall very often
find out what to do, from what is written."
"Uncle Philip, we almost always know what you mean; but now, we do not
quite understand you."
"Thank you, boys, for telling me that you do not know what I mean:
always tell any person who is trying to teach you something, when you
do not understand what is said to you. Now I will try to make what I
said plainer to you. The New Testament does not say any thing about your
going to school; does it?"
"No, sir."
"Who sends you to school, boys, and pays your teachers for instructing
you?"
"Our parents, Uncle Philip."
"Very well. Now suppose that John Carter here, should wish, instead of
going to school, to do, what I am very sure he never did do: suppose he
should determine to play the truant. The Bible does not say a boy shall
not play the truant, does it?"
"No, Uncle Philip."
"But if John Carter should play the truant, he would, in doing so,
disobey what God has commanded in the Bible just as much as if the Bible
did say 'A boy shall not play the truant;' for the Bible does say,
'_Children obey your parents_,' and he could not be a truant without
disobeying his parents, who bade him go to school."
"Uncle Philip, we understand you very well now."
"There is another thing I wish you to understand, boys. John Carter, as
you see, would not only disobey his parents, which is wicked, but he
would also commit a _sin_ against God. That is always the thing to look
at first. When we are going to do something that we are not very sure
is right, we should always stop to ask ourselves whether God will be
pleased with it. But I have said enough to you about our duty for this
time. Now for the ants I promised to tell you of. And the first sort I
shall mention are great fighters."
"Fighters, Uncle Philip! What do they fight about?"
"About trifles, boys, just as men do. They have terrible wars, and
will dispute with and kill each other for a few inches of dirt, when
certainly this world is large enough for them all. But animals wiser
than ants, boys, act in the same foolish way. Men sometimes go to war
and kill each other to determine who shall have a river, or a small
town, or a fort, or some little spot of ground; while the poor creatures
who do the fighting, and get all the wounds, and lose their lives, had
they been let alone, would have lived on in peace, and never cared a
straw who had the miserable little spot they fight for. But let me go
on with the account of these ants. In the forests, where the fallow
ants live, you may see these wars. The battle will be between the ants
of different hills, but they are all ants of the same sort. Thousands
and thousands of them will meet on the ground between their hills, and
the battle begins by two ants, who seize each other by the claws (or
_mandibles_, as they are called), and rising up on their hind-legs,
they bring their bodies near together, and spirt a sort of venomous or
poisonous juice upon each other. These will be followed by thousands of
others on both sides, who seize each other in the same way, and fight
in pairs--ant to ant. Sometimes they will get so wedged together that
they fall down upon their sides, but they do not let go on that account;
they keep on fighting in the dust until they rise on their feet again.
Sometimes, too, a third ant will come in, and joining whichever of
them belongs to his nest, the two will begin to drag the third, until
some of his friends come to his help; and in this way, others joining
on both sides, they will form strings of six, or eight, or ten on a
side, pulling with all their strength. And while some are fighting,
you will see others leading off prisoners towards their hills, while
the prisoners are trying to escape. The field of battle is not more,
perhaps, than three feet square; multitudes of dead ants covered with
venom may be seen upon it, and there is a very strong scent which comes
from it. When night comes they go off to their hills. Before dawn the
next day they are at it again in still larger numbers, and they fight
with greater fury than before, until at last one side or the other
gives way. They are so busy that even if you stand near them they take
no notice of you, and not one stops fighting, or crawls up your legs."
"Do all of them that belong to the hill go out to fight, Uncle Philip?"
"No; near the hills all is peace and order, and work seems to be going
on as usual. Only on the side next to the battle, crowds may be seen
running backwards and forwards from both hills; some as messengers, I
suppose, and some to fight, or carry back prisoners."
"But, Uncle Philip, you said that these ants were all of one sort; how
then do they know one another so as to tell which party each one belongs
to? I should think that sometimes they would make a mistake, and fight a
friend instead of an enemy."
"This, boys, is one of the most wonderful things concerning them. They
are alike in form, and size, and weapons, and strength; and sometimes
it happens that they do make a mistake, but it is very seldom; and when
they do, Mr. Huber, who watched one of their battles, says that they
find it out directly, and caress each other with their feelers, and
make up the difficulty at once.
"Are you tired, boys, or do you wish to hear more?"
"Oh, let us hear more, by all means: we are not at all tired."
"I will then tell you of another kind of ants called legionary ants,
and sometimes amazons; but I am sorry to say that they are unlike other
ants, for they are lazy; and yet they live very comfortably."
"How is that, Uncle Philip? Can they be comfortable without working?"
"Yes, boys, if they can get others to work for them; and these have
their work mostly done by their slaves."
"By their slaves! what are their slaves, and where did they get them?"
"As to your first question, boys, their slaves are ants of another kind;
as to the second question--where they get them--they _stole_ them when
they were young."
"Why you surprise us, Uncle Philip."
"I dare say I do. There are persons much older than you are who have
never attended at all to the doings of insects, who would be very much
astonished by the history of the legionary ants; and probably would
laugh at the whole account as an idle story; and yet it is all true,
and those who have read and seen, know it to be true; and they know,
too, that to deny it shows nothing but ignorance. However, I always let
such persons alone. I can do them no good; for they are apt to be very
conceited, and will not be convinced. And now for the legionary ant.
This is a fighting ant, as well as the last I mentioned; and it actually
steals the young of another kind, rears them, and puts all the work on
them, so as to be idle itself. This curious fact was first found out
by Mr. Huber; another gentleman, named Latreille, afterward saw the
same thing; and now a great many naturalists know it, because they have
sought for and seen it. The ant which it steals is of a dark ash colour;
the legionary is of light colour. The dark-coloured ant is now called
the negro ant, and is a very industrious, peaceable insect, without any
sting. The legionary is a strong, brave ant, with a sting, but very
lazy. I shall relate to you the account which Mr. Huber gives of the
legionary. He was walking near the city of Geneva during an afternoon
in the summer of 1804, when he saw quite an army of these legionary
ants crossing the road; they passed through a thick hedge, entered a
pasture, and kept on through the grass without separating; and Mr. Huber
followed them until he saw them come near a nest of negro ants. Some of
these negro ants seemed to be guarding the holes into their nest; but as
soon as they saw the legionaries, they, with a great many more from the
inside of the nest, attacked the thieves. The legionary ants, however,
were too powerful for them, and after a short but severe fight they
conquered the negroes, who ran into the lower part of their nests. The
legionaries then mounted their ant-hill, some entered it by the holes
already made, and others began with their teeth to break other holes,
so that all the army might get into the hill. They went in and remained
but a few minutes, when they came out, each one having in his mouth a
young negro ant, and off they scampered, without any order among them,
every one going his own way, until Mr. Huber lost sight of them. The
next day he set out to go back and examine further, and on his way he
found a large ant-hill full of legionaries, and saw an army start from
it, which he followed. They made the attack as before, and each one
came off with a young negro ant in his mouth, and on going back to their
hill, from which Mr. Huber saw them start, he had an opportunity of
seeing them return, and was very much surprised to find all around the
nest of the legionaries a great many full-grown negro ants. At first he
thought that perhaps they had gone there to fight the legionaries, but
he soon saw that instead of fighting, the negro ants went out to meet
the legionaries returning, and would caress them, and give them food,
and finally take the young negro ants and carry them within the nest."
"But, Uncle Philip, why do the legionaries always take the young ones?"
"Because, boys, they know, I suppose, that the old ants would never be
satisfied to remove from their homes; and therefore they take the young.
These legionaries could work if they would, I think, but they depend
upon the negro ants for house and home, and food too; and nothing can be
more faithful and affectionate than these poor slaves are. To try them,
Mr. Huber took thirty of the legionaries, and put them with some of
the larvæ, or grubs of their own young, into a glass box with a thick
coat of earth at the bottom of it, and he put honey also in the box,
that they might not want food. At first the legionaries paid a little
attention to their young; but they soon stopped; and they neither tried
to make a house, nor took any food, so that in two days half of them
died. Mr. Huber then put in _one_ negro ant, and this little creature
set to work alone, made a chamber of the earth in the box, gathered the
young together, fed the old, and put every thing into complete order.
"At another time Mr. Huber broke one of the ant-hills of these
legionaries, to see how they would act, and in doing it, he, of course,
altered their galleries and chambers. The legionaries seemed to be
lost, and went wandering about, without knowing where to go; but the
negro ants appeared to understand very well where they were: they could
find such of the galleries as were not broken, and would take up the
legionaries in their mouths and carry them into them. If the negro
sometimes seemed for a short time to be lost, and not to know where it
was, it laid down its master, ran round and examined until it knew, and
then would come back, and pick up the legionary ant, and carry it off.
In one case Mr. Huber saw that the entrance to a gallery was stopped up
by a small lump of earth; the negro ant laid his master down, took away
the piece of earth, and then carried him in."
"Why, these poor negro ants are sensible as well as faithful, Uncle
Philip."
"Yes, boys, they are so; and I think it is likely that both kinds depend
in some way upon each other, but we have not yet found all about it. I
expect that in some things the legionary does for the negro ant what it
could not do for itself. God has made them necessary to each other, and
this is the reason they live together so kindly.
"But I think it is time now to leave the ants, and go back to our
business of seeking for something like man's inventions and tools among
the lower animals. Perhaps hereafter I may tell you more about ants; but
at present I must bid you good morning."
"Good morning, Uncle Philip."