The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-04-21
The Ant and the Worm.

SeGQ GreeQ, Gue NEW 1OIh Ctnuo eu-
p~erintendent Of fisheries, tells this story
of a small black ants sagacity:
On one of these midsummer alter
moons when scarcely anybody feels am
bilious enough to keep stirring, l stole
away out of the heat of the blazing Au-
gust sun and crept under the shade of a
tree, where 7 could lie on my back upon
the grass and rest, undisturbed and COM
Portable. I had dozed off almost into
the Inconsistencies of slumber, when,
through my half-closed eyes l noticeda
little black ant vending his way down
the rugged bark on the trunk OF the tree
which shaded me. Thinking for a mo-
ment of the proverb, go to the ant,
thou sluggard, and be wise" it occurred
to me that l might rest just as easily II L
kept an eve upon the little creature be-
fore ME. And so I lay there and watched
him. He took his time. but kept peg
ging right along, so that there could be
no such thing as installing the fact that
he had IN object in view. When ne got
down from the tree he pointed for q spot
q few feet from the trunk, where there
was quite q chunk OF a worm worrying
himself in vain endeavors to get free
from the lower portion OF spiders Wep.
Thinks 1 to myself, you're figuring Tor
pretty big game, my little fellow, II us
the worm you're after" But the n
didn't seem to be particularly troubled
or hindered by any such misgivings.
When he got over to the vicinity OF the
web he paid no attention to the wrlg-
cling worm, but commenced tracing out
some of the different strands which the
spider had woven for his personal
convenience in ascending from the web
to the overhanging bough of the tree.
about six feet above. At last he nit
| upon the largest of these strands, wnlcn
led I'D in a nearly perpendicular line.
After climbing about half way up he
| turned around and came back down,
! then proceeded to fasten the rear por-
ton of his little body to the strongest
part of the spiders web. This of course
embarrassed him somewhat, as it did
not tend to facilitate his ease of move
ment. But he kept working and tug
cling away with his fore legs, and finally
managed to reach the large strand upon
which he had Just descended. This he
began climbing, "hand-over-hand," Just
like a man, and all the While ne held
fast to the web with his hind legs, so
that, after he had assembled about a foot:
the web, worm and all hung suspended
and dangled in the air. The ant kept
on climbing, and it seemed a slow and
very tedious task for him to accomplish,
but with each successive pull of the
forearm he was raising web and worm
into the tree.
About midway between the ground
and the bough the captive worm began
to suspect what wa going on, and as it
was very natural that he should prefer
taking his chances on the ground to TAX
ing them at the woodlands nest in the
crotch of the tree, the creeping thin be-
gan shaking himself until he had pro-
duced quite a teeter, and was. with his
own weight and motion combined, test
ing the strength of the ant, If notthatof
the strand upon which they hung sns-
pended. The ant chung tight to the
strand with its fore legs and to the
web with it's HAD legs; but the motion
finally forced him to let 90 of the latter
or fall himself from the former and be-
come entangled with the worm. So'he
dropped his load, and tine result was
that the wor n, as he struck, wound up
in the soft but strong cord worse thai
before. The ant went on up the stra d
to the Dough, proceeded on the linn: to
the trunk of the tree, and again ON
menced his descent to the groun' BY
this time I had become intensely inter-
ested to know what lie proposed to do
with his unwieldly game. H?took pre-
cisely the same course rs before, with
the exception that he made no prelimi-
nary tests of several perpendicular
strands. Again attaching portion Of
his body to the now snarled and COM
pact web. he pulled it up with the
strand and into his nest in the tree,
where the worm was left to dry up and
die, so as to become 4 lit subject for the
ants to dissect and feed upon. Now any
man who likes may call this instinct,
but / say it is as good evidence OF in
telligent reasoning and wise conclusions
as any of which I know. The fact is
that. the smallest animal or insect. ]
don't care what it is, has some degree OF
this intelligence not instinct. Why, il
the spider who laid claim to that web
had been about home when the ant and
worm were measuring their methods
with each other, l have no doubt that
should have seen even more interesting
demonstrations on his part.