Without These Black Soldier-Ants The Country Would Be Overrun
By The White Ants; They Are So Extremely Prolific, And Nothing Can Exceed
The Energy With Which They Work.
They perform a most important part
in the economy of nature by burying vegetable matter as quickly
beneath the
Soil as the ferocious red ant does dead animal substances.
The white ant keeps generally out of sight, and works under galleries
constructed by night to screen them from the observation of birds.
At some given signal, however, I never could ascertain what,
they rush out by hundreds, and the sound of their mandibles
cutting grass into lengths may be heard like a gentle wind
murmuring through the leaves of the trees. They drag these pieces
to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work,
and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice.
They continue out of sight for perhaps a month, but they are never idle.
On one occasion, a good bundle of grass was laid down for my bed
on a spot which was quite smooth and destitute of plants.
The ants at once sounded the call to a good supply of grass.
I heard them incessantly nibbling and carrying away all that night;
and they continued all next day (Sunday), and all that night too,
with unabated energy. They had thus been thirty-six hours at it,
and seemed as fresh as ever. In some situations, if we remained a day,
they devoured the grass beneath my mat, and would have eaten that too
had we not laid down more grass.
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