Lexington advertiser. [volume] (Lexington, Miss.) 1838-187?, 1870-07-22
Liliputian Fircmen.

A writer of an interesting article in A1
the Y8hp Bound, upon the habitatlOns OF
ants, thus describes the extinguishment
of n fire in an ant city OF the FOrm1cd
rufa, or wood ants:
at was composed mainly of twigs,
straw, and pine spicula, and swarmed
with insect life. POking our walking
sticks into the top of the mound, and lay
ing bare the upper surface, the tOrmlCans
who up till then had been wholly una
ware of our presence, began to under
stand that calamity had come upon them
Bctaking 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 be both formidable
and imminent. Such hurry skurry,
such a 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 adj
vanCing upon the city
When thronged the citizens with terror dumb
Or whispering with white lips, THE fOe-they
COmGl they comet
ave all looked on with interested
curiosity, and one Of my companions hay
ing finished his first cigar, deew'a box of
lucjfers from his pocket, and leisurely
proceeded to light second. This done,
he carcessly threw the burning match
upon the alt hill. 1t was an act as cruel
as it would have been in LGmuel Gulli-
yer, had that mountainous traveller will
fully set fire to the city of Liliput. The
fornlicans were for an instant confused,
and appeared not to know what to do.
But their perpleXity was of short dura.
ton. In less than half a minute scores
anI hundreds Of ants rushed upon the
blazing beap-fOr such it must have ap-
peared in their eyes-and exertng their
strength simultaneously upon it, en-
deavOred to thrust it 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 for those who still
lived as long as the awful COmbustiblG
was permitted to blaze and crackle, in the
midst OF them. was apprehenslve that
the whole mound, built as it was OF dry
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
TIE resolute liremen, score upon score,
hundred upon hundred, till at last they
rolled the match over and over, ana out
OF their precincts, Charred and blaCkened,
,I,,, incapable of further mischief We
all, more or less, miStrusted our eyes, and
the yOung gest, most thoughtless, and there.
fore the most cruel, of our company sug
glstcd thatif 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 q 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
oOnHlgratiOn, 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
to 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 truly merciful man
was as mcrciful to the smallest as to the
largest of Gods creatures; and that we
had no right, in the mere wantOnnGss of
scientific observation, to take away the |
lite which it was impossible for us to be-
utDw y