, 1880-07-26
The Overrated Ant.

l found nothing new in him-certainly
nothing to change my opinion of him
It seems to me that in the matter oi
intellect the ant must be strangely
overrated bird. During many sum.
mers now l have watched him, when !
ought to have been in better business
and have not yet come across living
ant that seemed to have any more sense
than dead one. refer to the ordi-
nary ant, of course; | have had no ex
perience of those wonderful Swiss and
African ones which vote, keep drilled
armies, hold slaves, and dispute about
religion. Those particular ants may
be all that the naturalist paints them,
but am persuaded that the average
ant is sham. l admit bis industry,
of course; he is the hardest working
creature in the world-when nybody
is looking--but his leather headedness
is the point | make against him. He
goes out foraging, he makes capture,
and then what does he DO? Go home ?
N ,; he goes anywhere but home. He
doesn't know where home is. His
home may be only three feet away; no
matter, he can't find it.
He makes his capture, as l have said !;
it is generally something which Can be
of no sort of use to himself or any
body else; it is usually seven times
bigger than it ought to be; he hunts
of it; he lifts it bod ly up IN the air
10y main force, AID starts-not toward
home, but in the opposite direction !;
not calmly and wisely, but with IA
frantic haste, which is wasteiul Of his
strength; he fetches up against peb-
BILE, and instead Of gong around it he
climbs over it backwards, dragging his
booty after him, tumbles down the
other side, Jumps up III passion, kicks
the dust of his clothes, moistens his
hand, grabs his property vicIously,
yanks it this way, then that, shoves it
ahead of him u moment. turns tail and
lugs it after him another moment, gets
madder and madder, then presently
hoists it into the air and goes tearing
away in an entirely new direction;
comes to a weed; it never occurs to
him to go around it. No, hs must
climb it, and he does climb it,
dragging his worthless property
to the top-which is as bright q
thing to do as it would be for me to
carry sack of -four from Heidelberg
to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple;
when he gets up there he finds that
that is not the place; takes q cursory
glance at the scenery, and either climbs
down again or tumbles down, and starts
off once more, as usual, in q new di-
rection.
At the end of half an hour he
fetches up within six inches of the
place he started from, and lays his bur
den down. Meantime he has been all
over 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 aimlessly off, in as
violent hurry as ever. He traverses
a good deal of zigzag country, and by
and by stumbles on his same booty
again. He does not remember to have
ever seen it before; he looks around to
see which is not the way home; grabs
his bundle and starts. He goes through
the same adventures he had before,
finally stops to rest, and friend comes
along. Evidently the friend remarks
that last years gra- shopper leg is a
very noble acquisition, and inquiries
where he got it. Evidently the pro-
prleter does not remember exactly
where he did get it. but thinks he got
it "around here somewhere" Evi-
dently the friend contracts to help him
freight it home. Then, with judg-
ment peculiarly antic (pun not inten-
they take hold of opposite
ends Of that grasshopper leg and begin
to tug with all their might in opposite
Presently they take rest
and confer together. They decide that
something is wrong. they can't make
out what. Then they 60 at it again,
Just as before. Same result. Mutual
follow. Evidently each
accuses the other of being an obstruc-
ZIONIST. They warm up. and the dis
pute ends in fight. They lock them
selves together and chew each others
jaws for while; then they roll and
tumble on the ground till one loses a
horn or leg and has to haul off for re-
pairs. They make up and 60 to work
again in the same old insane way, but
the crippled ant is at a disadvantage;
ting as he may, the other one drags off
the booty and him at the end of 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 that grasshopper leg
has been dragged ali over the same old
ground once more. it is finally dumped
at the spot where it originally lay. The
two perspiring ants inspect it thought
fully, and decide that dried grasshop-
per legs are poor sort of property
after all, and then each starts off in a
different direction to see if he can't
lind an old nail, or something else that
is heavy enough to afford entertain
ment, and at the same time valueless