The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1880-11-03
The Red Ant and the Picnic Season.

It is an important fact to announce
that the red ant crop Is now ripe; that Is,
it is ready to pick, or perhaps more
properly to picnic. The picnic has 40
nobler use of all it's uses than the eleva-
ton of the ant to position, often OF in
fuence, in human affairs. There is no
record of any picnic in any age without
its red amt F'Go the ant, thou slug
gard, was only q paraphrase for order
ing some lazy fellow to start on picnic
and learn to work. When he finds HIM
self where he has to bring pals Of water,
carry the ice, fetch the baskets, spread
the table, and so on, and finds no chance
to rest except by sArrendering to the IN
sect world completely and becoming
alike their highway and their habitation,
then he learns his little lesson OF the
advantage of paid labor and HES away
to give up slugging and earn honest
wages.
The bug is creature of already pro-
verbal influence. The man with flea
in his ear and the man with bee In his
bonnet are both monumental, but the
flea and the bee are no more influential
than the ant Scientists have made q
study Of this creature, and the stories
they tell of its intelligence and skill be-
little human generals in war or modern
machinery in peace and preserve self
respect only as they incidentally Illus
trate our ability to comprehend such
genius. But these great students of
nature, with all their information, forget
to give us q few habits of the ant They
may not indicate genius, but still they
do impress the observer. For one thing,
the ant is ravenously fond Of being
eaten. Before the picnic table can be
spread he will be mixing himself freely
with the fine sugar, he will be in the
cells of the bread, he will be bathing in
the milk, and he viii be lost In the melt
ing butter. Whatever we are to eat he
will be a part of. He seems bound to
get at the inside facts of human nature.
But he is equally eager for the outside.
One division will go down q mans neck,
and other divisions cOuntermarch up his
arms and ankles. One reason why, In
spite of reason and fatigue, picnic parties
always have dance ON the lawn the
moment lunch is over is to shake out the
ants from their clothes. Nobody ever
really assigns this reason, but they all
| feel It and feel the ants, too, and hepce
their antics.
Now, man, in his makeup, has no re-
cinrocaI for this love of the ant for him.
The bug neither improves his food nor
his mood, and so the one-sided romance
of misplaced affection In nature lies be-
fore the scientists an unsolved riddle IN
whose presence they are dumb. II
would be worth more to US, though, to
know how this love for man developed
and how to stop it than is all that we are
told as to the astonishing stratagemS,
plans. tricks, affection, caution and greai
! courage of ants In their other relations.
1t is early in the season, truly, to tal
into this sort of meditation. The picnic
boom has only just begun, and up tc
date the ant has had pretty Lonesome
time of it. But he is sure of his gama
sooner or later. The more ants we cal
at a picnic the more we find there thS
next time; the more we carry home II
Dur clothes the greater the supply re-
manning. and as we only have our plc
MICS id ant-time, this win always be so
r. ia ant-time now.-Chartes DEdLsl
Wargaer. in Hartford COtlTasat.
"What are your politics?" the chap
lain of the Iowa Penitentiary asked al
intelligent-leoking convict. 81 have
not come out for any body yet" replied
! ~ placfdIu fh