Wisdom of the Wilderness/The Citadel in the Grass
IN a sunny fence corner at the foot of the pasture, partly overhung by a pink-blossomed bush of wild rose and palisaded by a thin fringe of slender, pallid grass stems, lay the ants' nest. In outward appearance it was a shallow, flattened, tawny-colored mound, this citadel in the grass, about a foot and a half across and eight or ten inches high, its whole surface covered with particles of dry earth mixed with and lightened by bitten fragments of dead grass and spruce needles, and pitted irregularly with round black holes from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in diameter. These were the easily guarded gateways to the tunnels leading to the dark and mysterious interior of the citadel. For some feet all around the base of the mound the grass roots were threaded by faint trails, made by the ants in bringing home supplies and booty to the nest.
On this bland blue morning of early summer, when the unclouded sunshine was not too hot to be gracious and stimulating, the tawny dome of the citadel was alive with workers. They were a sturdy species of ant, this tribe, somewhere about a half inch in length, with powerful mandibles and broad heads, the head and thorax of a rusty-red color and the abdomen blackish brown. Some were busy opening up the tunnel entrances, which had been closed during the night, and letting fresh air into the interior. They carefully removed the pellets of dry earth and bits of dead grass which had formed the stoppers, and seemed to give themselves much unnecessary work by carrying their burdens about in their jaws before making up their minds just where to lay them down. Others ran around aimlessly, as if they had lost something and had no idea of where to look for it. Possibly these had been on night duty in the deep underground nurseries, and were merely taking the air before getting back to their helpless charges. But the majority acted quite differently. On emerging to the light they would pause and wave their antennae for a few seconds, as if signaling, and would then hurry straight ahead, with an air of set purpose, down the steep of the citadel and out through a forest of grass stems. They were the foragers and hunters, seeking their booty or their prey in the weedy wilderness along the fence.
In a few minutes certain of these began to straggle back, early successful in their quest and carrying their prizes; perhaps a small dead fly, or a tiny grub still squirming inconvenient protest against his fate, or the head or leg or wing of some victim so bulky as only to be dealt with piecemeal; while here and there some triumphant forager would come struggling homeward inch by slow inch, dragging a prize many times bigger and heavier than herself—perhaps a fat spider or a sprawling little dead grasshopper—which she had feared to dissect for transport lest the pieces should be stolen in her absence. Working her way backwards and tugging the prize along by the head or leg or wing, held up for minutes at a time by the obstacle of a root or a pebble, she would drag and pull and worry like a terrier on a rope, till at last the precious burden was brought to the foot of the mound, where it could safely be cut up at leisure.
Among these eager foragers was one whom, as typical of her species, we may distinguish by the name Formica. A strenuous and experienced worker in the prime of her powers, on leaving the nest she had speedily struck off aside from the trails of her fellows, desirous of fresh hunting grounds in the miniature jungle of grass and weeds. Having come across a head of red-clover bloom trodden down and crushed by the pasturing cattle, she was now filling herself greedily with honey from the bottom of the broken flower tubes. This red-clover honey was a delicacy which, though she might sniff its perfume longingly, she could never hope to taste except by lucky accident; for at the base of those deep, narrow-tubed blossoms it was beyond the reach of all despoilers but the long-tongued bumblebees. Now, in the golden warmth, hummed over by tiny, envious flies who were careful not to come within reach of her mandibles, she was lapping up the nectar and enjoying herself as if she had not a duty or responsibility in the world.
But Formica, though much more independent, more conscious of her individual rights than, for instance, that communistic automaton, the bee, was a most responsible little personage, aware of all her duties to the state. When she had absorbed all the clover honey she could hold she climbed down from the ruined blossom and glanced about, waving her antennse, in the hope of finding something worth taking home to the state larder. At this moment there was a rustling among the grass stems, and a tiny, grayish-brown shrewmouse, looking to Formica as huge as an elephant, came scurrying by with a shining bluebottle fly gripped in his jaws. As he crossed the open space where the clover was trodden down there came a fierce rush of wind that nearly swept Formica from her feet; and a sparrow hawk, who had been watching from her perch on the nearest fence stake, swooped down upon the luckless shrew and bore him off. As he opened his jaws in a squeak of anguish the bluebottle dropped from them and fell beside Formica.
Though almost overwhelmed by that gust from the sparrow hawk's wings, Formica pounced instantly upon the rich and unexpected prize. The bluebottle was not quite dead. It was on its back and too severely wounded to turn over, but it could still kick and move its wings with an embarrassing degree of vigor. The great, many-faceted eyes of the crippled insect glared upon its assailant with shifting, many-colored flame; but Formica was herself well equipped in the way of eyes and refused to be impressed. Forcing herself in between the waving legs, she sank her mandibles deep into the victim's thorax; and then, arching her body to bring the tip of her abdomen well beneath, like the attitude of a wasp in stinging, she injected into the wound a dose of formic acid from the poison glands which served her in place of a sting. Whether by good luck or intuitive knowledge, she had struck upon a great nerve center for her injection, and the dose worked swiftly. The twitching wings and waving legs grew still. The unfortunate fly was not yet dead, for it could still move its head, and the opalescent fires still flamed and fleeted in its great eyes. But as long as it could not struggle Formica was satisfied, and she set herself valiantly to the task of dragging her booty home.
The distance from the crushed clover bloom to the citadel in the grass was only about fifteen feet, but it took Formica a full hour of furious effort to accomplish it. For a good half the distance the jungle was dense and trackless; and the captive, though utterly unresisting, had a way of getting its wings tangled up with the grass roots or of wedging itself between a couple of stiff stems that would drive Formica frantic with exasperation. Under these circumstances she would always waste many minutes and a vast amount of energy in striving to master the obstacle by main force before she could bring herself to take a new grip and try an easier path.
When at last she had come to the frequented trail and was continually meeting her friends, she never demanded help and seldom received any offer of it; and this was just as well, seeing that whenever a passer-by paused to lend a hand—or a mandible—the result was only confusion. The newcomer was pretty sure to go about the job in a casual, absent-minded fashion, and as often as not to pull in quite the wrong direction, till Formica, in a rage, would rush at her and unceremoniously hustle her away.
Arrived at last safely at the citadel with her splendid trophy, Formica seemed to consider her labors for the moment at an end. That gleaming blue bulk was much too heavy for her to drag it up the slope of the dome. She handed it over, with a hasty waving of antennae, to a knot of her comrades, and wandered up the steep slope with the air of one who has earned a bit of leisure but does not quite know what to do with it. She made a tour of the top of the mound, occasionally wandering into one of the entrances, but always coming out again in a few seconds. And every now and then she would stop to touch antennae with an acquaintance. Presently she came face to face with a disheveled friend who was evidently just home from a rough-and-tumble fight of some sort. Weary, wounded, and covered with dirt, the newcomer seemed to convey some sorry tale to Formica, who straightway fell to stroking and cleansing her with every mark of sympathy.
The ant hill, as we have seen at the beginning of this narrative, was partly overhung by the branches of a wild rosebush which grew against the fence. The rosebush at this season was in full bloom, and the pale-pink, golden-centered blossoms were thronged with pollen hunters and hummed about with innumerable wings. Sober brown bees dusted over with the lemon-colored rose pollen, darting iridescent flies, irresponsible yellow butterflies and black-and-yellow wasps, swift and fiercely intent on their hunting—all found the glowing rosebush their focus of interest or of fate.
A black-and-white dog from the farmhouse on the hillside above the pasture came trotting up to the fence sniffing for rabbit tracks, and as he passed the rosebush one of the busy wasps buzzed close at his ear. Thoughtlessly—mistaking it, in his absorption, for a big fly—he snapped at it and caught it. With a yelp of surprise he spat it out again violently and began to paw at his smarting muzzle. Finding this quite ineffective to allay the fiery torment in his tongue, he raced off, whimpering, with his tail between his legs, to plunge his mouth into the soothing chill of the horse trough in the farmyard.
The wasp, meanwhile, her wings disabled and daubed with saliva, but still very much alive and furiously angry, had fallen upon the very center of the teeming ant hill, and almost, so to speak, under Formica's nose. Formica, with a courage and a self-sacrifice beyond all praise, instantly seized the dreadful monster by a wing. Her career would have come to an end there and then, but that, in the same lightning fraction of a second, three other ants, equally brave and reckless of destruction, flung themselves into the struggle. The wasp had fallen on her back. Now, curving her muscular black-and-yellow body nearly double, she brought into play her long, terrible sting—a bitter red flame which flickered in and out, this way and that, like a lightning flash, and whose least touch meant death. Two of her small assailants dropped instantly, stiffened out as if struck by a thunderbolt; but in the next moment she was literally covered. Fighting not only with that fatal sting but also with her feet, like a boxer, and with her powerful jaws, like a terrier, she was presently surrounded by a ring of dead or crippled foes; but for every one that fell there were a dozen more eager to rush in, till she was almost buried from view.
Formica, by worrying at her like a bulldog, having succeeded in biting off the wing which she had first seized, now drew away for a moment to consider. An experienced and resourceful fighter, she liked to spend herself to the best advantage. Suddenly she darted in and secured a grip upon the slender but powerful tubelike joint which connected the wasp's abdomen with her thorax. Here, though almost crushed by her victim's frantic lashings, she bit and sawed with her tireless mandibles till she succeeded in dividing the great trunk nerve. Instantly the abdomen lost its rigid curve, ceased its lashing, and straightened out. Formica continued her operation, however, till the whole tube was severed; and the disjointed abdomen rolled aside, its sting still flickering in and out, but no longer directed, and dangerous only to those who were careless enough to get in its way.
The battle being now over, certain of the ants set themselves to dragging the spoils down into the nest by one of the larger tunnels, while others began to clear up the field, carrying the bodies of the slain away from the citadel and dropping them among the grass roots. Yet others fell to caring for the wounded, carrying them into the cool, dark passages and cleansing them and tenderly licking their wounds. But Formica, feeling that she had done enough for the moment, left all these duties to the others and betook herself into the interior of the citadel in search of rest and refreshment.
About an inch below the surface the narrow passage by which she had entered made a sharp turn, almost doubling upon itself; and immediately she was in what would have seemed to our human eyes thick darkness. But to her, with her highly complex and many-faceted organs of vision, it was only a cool gloom, very soothing to her sensitive nerves after the glare of the outside world. Still descending—and passing on the way, with a touch of the antennae, many acquaintances and comrades—she came to the doorway of a wide but low-roofed chamber, with a watchful guard at the entrance. Here were about a hundred of the whitish so-called ant eggs—in reality pupæ, almost mature, in their frail cocoons—all ranged carefully in the center of the chamber and with a couple of guardians walking about among them. They had been brought up from the safe depths of the citadel to absorb the tempered but vitalizing warmth in this apartment near the surface, and were being watched with special sohcitude because they were very near the time for their emergence as full-grown ants.
Formica merely glanced in upon them, exchanging greetings with the guards, and continued her way down to the cooler and moister depths. Here she turned into another spacious chamber, its low ceiling supported by several irregular columns of compacted earth. Here and there about the center of the chamber were little clusters of the ant grubs, or larvæ, sorted carefully according to their age and size, each cluster attended by several diligent nurses who were kept busy feeding the hungry but legless and quite helpless young. To all these Formica paid no attention whatever. One of the older, more highly experienced members of the community, she had long ago graduated from the simple routine duties of the nurseries. These fell, for the most part, upon the very young ants, or upon a few smaller, blackish ants of another race which the community kept as slaves.
Around the walls of the chamber were a number of little, chubby, squat-built insects, each placidly pasturing on the tips of grass roots which had penetrated the foundations of the citadel. It was these tiny creatures—a species of aphis, or plant louse, carefully kept and tended by the ants as we keep our herds of cows—that Formica was now seeking in her desire for refreshment. Going up to one of them, she began to stroke and caress it coaxingly with her antennae, till presently the little creature, in response, exuded a sticky drop of honeydew, which Formica lapped up greedily. From one to another she passed, getting always a sweet contribution, except from such as had already been milked, until her appetite was satisfied. Then she made a hasty inspection of the rest of the flock, as if to assure herself that all were duly supplied with provender. This done, she ran across to one of the slaves and tapped her gently with her antennae; whereupon the latter, dutifully and with the utmost good will, set herself to the task of making her mistress' toilet, licking and polishing her from head to foot, and ending up by feeding her with a drop of honey just as she would have fed one of the helpless larvæ.
Thoroughly refreshed, Formica now passed gayly through several galleries and presently entered the great central chamber of the citadel—an apartment some five or six inches across, nearly circular, and supported by half a dozen stout pillars. This chamber was thronged. It was the life center of the citadel. Every here and there were clusters of eggs, or groups of larvæ and pupæ, surrounded by their guards. Active little pallid-colored wood lice, the scavengers of the nest, scurried busily hither and thither, as completely ignored as the street cleaners are in the thoroughfares of a busy human city.
At the very center of the chamber was the great queen mother of the tribe, a huge ant more than double the size of any of her subjects. She was surrounded by a dense crowd of attendants, all with their heads turned toward her as if in respectful homage, waiting to feed her or cleanse her or carry away her eggs whenever she saw fit to lay them, or to perform eagerly any service which she might require. Three or four idle males, gentlemen of leisure, much smaller and slenderer than the queen, strolled about among the busy throng, occasionally caressing a complaisant worker or a slave, and generally receiving a taste of honey in return.
Formica went straight up to the crowd surrounding the queen mother and stood there for perhaps a half minute, waving her antennae and paying her respects. It would seem, however, that some sort of a council was being held at the moment, presumably under the guidance of the queen, and that decisions of importance to the tribe were being reached. For all at once there was a great stir and shifting, and a number of the ants, hurriedly extricating themselves from the press, formed themselves in an orderly file and hastened from the chamber. Among the foremost of these, already recovered and prepared for adventure in spite of her strenuous morning, was Formica.
As it started from the state chamber the detachment was a small one, of not more than eighty or a hundred; but as it went it was swelled by fresh adherents flocking out from every gallery, for word had gone all through the citadel that a slave-raiding expedition was afoot. Filing forth upon the surface of the dome, the detachment was joined by squads from other tunnel exits; and when it formed up into a compact column and marched off down the side of the nest it was perhaps from five to six hundred strong.
It was obvious that this expedition had been fully prepared for in advance and all necessary scouting carried out. Prudent forethought and a fine directing intelligence, as distinguished from mere instinct, or what the scientists call reflex action, were most unmistakably stamped upon it. The little army knew where it was going and why it was going. The line of march had been selected, and the leaders knew the route; and there was no hesitation or delay. In spite of obstacles, for there was no clear trail, the column kept its array in most disciplined fashion, and there were no stragglers.
Fully a hundred feet away from the citadel, in the grass, on the other side of the fence, and just upon the open fringe of the forest, stood another ant hill, upreared from the short turf between the roots of an old weather-bleached stump. This nest was occupied by a strong tribe of blackish-brown ants, similar to the slaves in Formica's community. Though slightly smaller than Formica, they were a sturdy, industrious, intelligent race, making the best of slaves; and Formica's people had decided that they must have a fresh supply of them. Hence this warlike and altogether unprovoked invasion. Whatever the virtues to be observed in the world of the ant folk, a regard for the rights of strangers is not among them. The ants' morality begins and ends with the interests of their own community.
The approach of the enemy was observed by the dark ants while the hostile column was yet several feet away, or possibly the alarm had been given by terrified scouts. However that may be, a swarm of defenders gathered swiftly on the summit of the threatened nest. They rushed down the slope and hurled themselves desperately upon the invaders. Their courage and devotion were beyond reproach; but in strength, in the effectiveness of their weapons, and in military skill they were no match for Formica and her fellows. After five minutes or less of furious mêlée they were routed and fled back into the depths of their nest, leaving half their number dead or mortally stricken on the field, while the casualties among the invading ranks were hardly worth mentioning.
The battle once decided, the victors were not vindictive. They had come not to slaughter needlessly but to procure slaves. For this purpose adult captives were of no use to them. They wanted the larvæ and pupæ of the vanquished, whom they could rear in captivity and who—knowing no other state and not regarding their captors as foes—would be contented and unaware of their bondage. At the doorway to each tunnel guards were placed, while strong parties dashed down through all the galleries. At the narrow entrances to the nurseries and to the great central chamber there were brief but sharp struggles with the guards, who all died on the spot rather than betray their trusts.
But, entrance once gained, there was practically no more fighting, as the thoroughly beaten black army had disappeared into the underground passages beneath the stump.
The actions of the invaders within the nest were deliberate, disciplined, and swift. To the big black queen, whom they regarded less as an enemy than as a potential mother of a future supply of slaves, they paid no heed whatever. The scattered piles of eggs, too, they ignored, though they would have been glad to devour such succulent fare had there been time. But for some reason the order had gone forth that there was to be no delay and no divergence from the one supreme object of the expedition.
In the main chamber and the several subsidiary nurseries there were almost enough pupæ to burden the whole army of the invaders. The remainder had to content themselves with larvæ, who, being able to wriggle, were less convenient to carry, especially as they had to be gripped without wounding their delicate skins. As soon as each marauder had secured her prize she hastened with it to the surface of the nest. There the column again formed up, but this time rather loosely and irregularly, as there was no longer any fear of attack; and the triumphant red warriors, each bearing aloft in her mandibles, very tenderly and without apparent effort, a captive as big and heavy as herself, were soon streaming back homeward in long procession through the grass roots.
This expedition, however, hitherto so triumphantly successful, was not destined to reach home without a measure of ill luck to dull the brightness of its triumph. A sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed animal, about the size of a cat, of a glossy black color, with a white stripe down each side of its back and waving a long, fluffy, handsome tail, chanced to be nosing along the fence in search of mice, beetles, or grasshoppers. His sharp eyes detected the richly laden procession of the ants just as the head of the column reached the fence.
The skunk was not particularly partial to full-grown ants as an article of diet, because the formic acid in their poison sacks was rather pungent for his taste. But their young, whether in the form of larvas or of pupæ, he regarded as a delicacy.
Standing astride the procession, he began hastily licking up as many as he could, munching and gulping down captives and captors together with huge satisfaction. Formica, with her burden, just evaded this horrid fate. Alert and observant as always, she slipped under the edge of a pebble as the long red tongue of the skunk was descending upon her. But the hot breath of the devouring monster filled her with wholesome fear. Still clinging to her precious burden, she crept aside from the crippled column, taking a path of her own, and rejoined it only under the shelter of the fence.
When the remnants of the rear guard had escaped him the skunk climbed through the fence, hoping to find the procession again on the other side. In this, however, though he searched diligently, he was disappointed, for the line of march lay for several yards along beneath the bottom rail before emerging again into the open. The skunk, stumbling upon a mouse nest in the grass, forgot all about the ants. And the expedition, diminished by fully a third of its number, made its way back to the citadel without further misadventure, the survivors still clinging doggedly to their booty.
As Formica was one of the wisest, most efficient and most courageous citizens of the community, she was usually hunting and foraging farther afield than most of her comrades.
Sometimes, she being inveterately hostile to all other ants except those of her own tribe, she got into savage duels, from which she always came off victorious, though frequently not without scars. Once in a while, moreover, she was rash enough to tackle a quarry too powerful and pugnacious for her—a nimble hunting spider or a savage little bronze scavenger beetle with jaws as destructive as her own. When she made a mistake of this sort she was driven to using the pungent venom at the tip of her abdomen in order to confuse the foe and enable her to escape.
Being thus endowed beyond her fellows with wisdom and quick perception to direct her courage, Formica would probably have lived to follow the fortunes of her tribe through several eventful summers had it not been for her restless and intrepid curiosity. She was of the stuff of which explorers are made. One day, adventuring through a patch of blueberry scrub many yards upon the forest side of the fence, she came upon a strange plant, quite unlike any she had ever seen before. There was no main stalk; but a cluster of stout stems, arising from the crown of the root, bore each one leaf, some three or four inches in length, shaped like a broad-lipped water jug. The leaves were of a lucent, tender green, veined and striped with vivid crimson, and gave forth a subtle odor, perceptible to none but the most delicate senses, which seemed to suggest honeydew. What reasonable ant could resist the lure of honeydew? Formica could not.
But if she had known that this was the terrible carnivorous pitcher plant, the relentless devourer of insects, she would have fled in horror.
Instead of fleeing, however, she eagerly ran up the nearest stem, and up the cool, translucent, redveined globe of the lower leaf, delighted to find that the firm hairs which covered stem and leaf alike all pointed upwards instead of downwards, and so offered no obstacle to her progress. Gaining the rim of the pitcher, she peered inside, looking for the source of that honeydew fragrance. Beneath her she saw a fairylike interior, filled with cool green light, and about half full of water. In the water, to be sure, there floated the drowned bodies of a wasp, a spider, and several small flies. But this fact conveyed no warning to Formica. Rather it suggested to her the hope of easy prey after she should have found the honeydew which she was seeking.
The broad lip of the pitcher offered her an easy path; and she was gratified to find that those fine hairs, which on the outside all slanted upwards, were now, most conveniently, all slanting downwards. The slope grew steeper and steeper, till presently, when she saw the water just beneath, she found the hairs so slippery that she had great difficulty in keeping her foothold. At this point she became apprehensive. Deciding to seek a safer path, she turned to retrace her steps. But now those treacherous hairs, which had so sweetly aided her progress, turned hostile. They became an array of sharp needle points, leveled in her face. She tried to thrust them aside, to penetrate them; but in vain. In a sudden panic she forced herself against them desperately. For an instant they yielded; and then, with savage recoil, they hurled her, kicking and sprawling, into the watery abyss.
A few hours later a young girl, a summer visitor at the farmhouse on the hillside, chanced to be wandering along the edge of the woods, looking for wild flowers. Overjoyed to find so fine a specimen of the Sarracenia, she dug it up carefully by the roots to take it home. But first, of course, she emptied the lovely, pale-green, ruby-veined pitchers, pouring forth upon the moss, among other victims, the bodies of a wasp, a spider, several small flies—and Formica.