The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1870-07-14
Liliputian Firemen.


a writer of an interesting article in All
| tie Year Round, upon the habitations of
ants, thus describes the extinguishment
of a fire in an ant city of the FOrmsica
| rufd, or wood ants:
1T was composed mainly of twigs,
straw, and pine spicul@, and swarmed
with insect life. POking our walking
sticks into the top of the mound, and lay
| ing bare the upper surface, the formcans,
VINO up till then had been wholly una
ware of our presence, began to under
stand that calamity had come upon them
| Betaking themselves, as is their wont, to
the care Of the young, countless thousands
of them suddenly appeared, each carrying
"A cocoon much bigger than itself, which
it was evidently anxious to deposit in
| some place out of the reach of a danger
which. although they could not compre-
| hend, they knew to he both formidable
and imminent. Such a hurry skurry,
such running to and fro, such getting
up and down stairs, as the song says, such
cOmmOtiOn could scarcely have been
| known even at Brussels on the memora-
| bic night of the ball, on the eve of the
great battle of Waterloo when it was
| suddenly announced to the officers of the
allied armies that the French were ad
vancing upon the city
| When thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering with white lips, The toe-they
cOmel they comet
"We all looked on with interested
curiosity and one Of my companions hav-
| ing finished his first cigar, drew box of
lucifers from his pocket, and leisurely
proceeded to light second. This done
| he carelessly threw the burning match
upon the ant hill. 1t was an act as cruel
as it would have been in Lemuel Gulli-
yer, had that mountainous traveller will
| fully set fire TO the city of Lliput. The
| f0rmicans were for an instant confused,
| and appeared rot to know what to do
| But their perplexity was of short dura-
ton. In less than half a minute scores
and hundreds of ants rushed upon the
| blazing beam-for such it must have ap-
peared in their eyes-and eXerting their
strength simultaneously upon it, en-
deavOred to thrust il, from their city. Many
OF them were burned to death in the gal
liant endeavOr, but the survivors, nothing
| daunted, pressed forward over their dead
or writhing bodies, as if conscious that
| there Was no safety Tor those who still
| lived as long as the awful COmbustible
was permitted to blaze and crackle in the
midst of them | was apprehensive that
twigs, would take fire but the mists had
lain upon the mountain and the valley,
the air was moist, and the flame of the
match burnt upwards. EDWARDS rushed
tue Tesolute firemen, score upon score,
| hundred upon hundred, till at last they
rolled the match over and over, and out
| OF their precincts, charred and blackened,
| and incapable of further mischief We
! 's,i -'.,'-~ i~-~, --rilGtpsi Hur eyes and
She youngest, most thOughtless, and thorn
| fore the most cruel, of our company sug
| gested that if there were intelligence and
design on the part of the ants in acting as
we supposed they had done, there would
be no harm in making second expert
ment. No sooner said than done. An
other match was ignited and thrown upon
| the heap, and again, precisely as on the
| first occasion, the ants rushed pell nell
upon the blazing intruder, to prevent
| conf agration, which, had it taken firm hold,
it would have been impossible for them
| to extinguish. Again some of the fore
most champions OF the public safety lost
| their limbs, and many more of them their
lives; and by the mere force and pressure
of numbers acting with common pur
| pose, the match was eXtruded before much
| harm had been done. | opposed myself
| 10 third renewal of the experiment, and
succeeded In persuading my companions,
although not without difficulty, that
enough had been done for curiosity and
| natural history that a truly merclful man
| was as merciful to the smallest as To- the
| largest of Gods creatures; and that we
| had no right, in the mere wantonDess of
| scientific observation, to take away the
| life which it was impossible for us to be-
stow"