Litchfield enquirer., 1880-05-27
The Unreasonable Ant.

From "A Tramp Abroad" 6y Aark 7tOaia.
 Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work. I found noth- ing new in him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a strangely overrated bird. During many summers now l have watched him, when ought to have A been in better business, and have not yet come across living ant that seemed to have any more sense than, dead one. 1 refer to the ordinary ant of course; have had no ex- perience of those wonderful Swlss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, hold , slaves, and dispute about religion. Those par- ticular ants may be all that the naturalist paints them, but am persuaded that the av-'' craze ant IS a sham. 1 admit his industry of i course he is the hardest working creature In the world-when anybody is lookng-but his leather-headedness is the point make against. him. He goes out fOraging, he makesa cap-,r ture. and then what does he. do? Go home No he goes anywhere but home He dosen't know where home is. His home may be only three feet away nc matter, he can't find it. ,
 He makes his capture, as Ihave said it is generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be; he a hunts out the awkardest place to take hold of it he lifts it bodily up in the air by main, force, and starts-not toward home, but in the
 
 with frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength he fetches up against pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it q backwards, dragging his booty after him, tumbles down the other side, jumps up In a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moist ems his hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks 1t this way, then that, shoVes it ahead of him moment, turns tail and Jugs it after him another moment, gets madder and mad der, then presently h0lAs it into the air and goes tearing away in an intlrely new direction; comes to weed it never occurs to him to go around it. No; he must climb it, and he , does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top-which as bright thing to do as it would be fer me to carry sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple when he gets up there he finds that that is not the place: takes cursory glance at the scenery, starts'of once nOre-as usual,
 in new direction. e ..,.. ..,.. rt
 At the end of half an hour he fetches up within SIX inches of the place he started from, and lays hls burden down. Meantime he has. been over all the ground for two yards around, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came !, across. Now he wipes the sweat from his.' brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches ainl-. lessly off, in as violent inannerAs ever. He, traverses good deal of zig gag country, and by -and-by etumbles on his same booty again. He does not remember to ever have seen 1t betf fore he looks around to sec which is not the way home, grabs his bundle and starts. He : goes through the same adventures he had be- fore, finally stops to rest, and friend comes along Evidently the friend remarks that last years grasshopper leg is very noble ae-nl quisition, and inquires where he got it. Ev4iP idently the proprietor does not remember ex-a actly where he did get it, but he thinks he got it ''around here somewhere. Evidently the friend contracts to help him freight it home Then, with judgment peculiarly b antic (pun not intentional), they take hold ofis opposite ends of the grasshopper leg and be-ir gin to tug with all their might in opposite sdi.l9 reetions Presently they take rest, and con- fer together. They decide that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then theyi1 go at it again, just as before Evidently each. accuses the other of being an obstruotionistgils They warm up and the dispute ends in h' fight. They lock themselves together and1o chew each others jaws for while; then they lq roll and tumble on the ground till one loses horn or a leg and has to haul'of for repairs.g They make up and go to work again in the ar same old insane way, but the crippled ant is at disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one drags of the booty and him at the end ofs it. Instead of giving up, he hangs on and gets his shins bruised against every, obstruction that comes in the way. By -and-by, when the grasshopper leg has been dragged all over the same old ground once more; it is finally dump ed at about the spot where it originally lay. The two perspiring ants inspect it thought fully and decide that dried grasshoppef legs are aipoor sort of property after all and then, each starts of in different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something else | that is heavy enough to afford eptertainment and at the same time vaueless enough to make i an ant want to own it. .s'''e2lf s'l1s 'o g3; i,es--- ..if t..,s