To every hundred workers in a white-ant colony, which numbers many thousands of individuals, there are, perhaps, two soldiers. These are larger in build than the laborers, and never perform any other work than sentry duty; yet they go about with a certain air of business, as if one were the architect and the other the superintendent of the structure being built.
They are stationed at the mouth of the tunnel. Sometimes enemies—other species of ants—draw near, and then the working white ants, being but poor, defenseless creatures, blind and unarmed, would be in danger of death were not their big fighting comrades on guard. The soldiers rush to the rescue and, with a few sweeps of their scythe-like jaws, clear the field. While the attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders, unconscious of the fray, quietly continue at their work.
It is not only a tree here and there that exhibits the work of the white ant, but in many places the whole forest is so colored with dull red columns as to give a distinct tone to the landscape. The earth tubes crumble into dust in the summer, the clay is scattered over the country by the wind, and in this way tends to increase and refresh the soil.
Again, during the rains, this ant-raised earth is washed into the rivulets and borne away to fertilize distant valleys, or is carried to the ocean, where, along the coast line, it "sows the dust of continents to be."
II. RED ANTS.
BY JULES MICHELET.
Peter Huber, walking one day in a field near Geneva, saw on the ground a strong detachment of reddish colored ants on the march, and bethought himself of following them. On the flanks of the column, as if to dress its ranks, a few sped to and fro in eager haste. After marching for about a quarter of an hour, they halted before an ant-hill belonging to some small black ants, and a desperate struggle took place at its gates.
A small number of blacks offered a brave resistance; but the great majority of the people thus assailed fled through the gates remotest from the scene of combat, carrying away their young. It was just these which were the cause of the strife—what the blacks most feared being the theft of their offspring. And soon the assailants, who had succeeded in penetrating into the city, might be seen emerging from it, loaded with the young black progeny.
The red ants, encumbered with their living booty, left the unfortunate city in the desolation of its great loss, and resumed the road to their own habitation, whither their astonished observer followed them. But how was his astonishment augmented when at the threshold of the red ants' community, a small population of black ants came forward to receive the plunder, welcoming with visible joy these children of their own race, which would perpetuate it in foreign lands!
This, then, was a mixed city, where the strong warrior ants lived on a perfectly good understanding with the little blacks. But what of the latter? Huber soon discovered that they were the workers of the community. It was they alone who did all the building. They alone took care of the young red ants and the captives of their own species. They alone administered the affairs of the city, provided its supplies of food, and waited upon their red masters who, like great infant giants, allowed their little attendants to feed them at the mouth.