Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-08
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

fellows are OF triple or quadruple size,
so big tnat one can almost distinguish
one ant from Its brother.
They do not seem to play exactly fair.
in their depredations. but often attack
one lawn, while leaving that OF ones
next door neighbor severely alone. just
why this is so 1t is difficult to say, but
probably in most cases 1t will be found
that the site selected is better watered.
Despite popular opinions, ants do not
mind water In the least. Some home
owners think to drown them, by putting
the nozzle Of the hose into the mouth OF
their dens and permitting the water to
flow In for an hour at time.
Surely, in an hour one might think
enough water would flow in to food
the entire series of galleries. But If
we know anything about ants at all, IT
is safe to say that they have foreseen
all this.
No doubt they have spillways and
draining away all the water that any
man. priding himself on his intelligence
can pour down upon them.
4 X 4
Who has not in the mad pride of in
telligence, trampled down the ant hills
in his back yard. only to find them
there bigger and better than ever the
next morning?
The ants have a way of coming back
which mankind might we'll envy. Nc
doubt It is communistic effort on
their part, based on the good OF the
pack. rather than the rights Of the in
dvidual.
The tribe is all. with the ants. we
should say. Life, with them, means the
national life, strange entity which
from one standpoint. does not exist al
all. and yet is everything, from another
The ants have no mental struggle
which way they shall go, whether
toward collective or individual effort.
When they invade your home and
| find bit of breakfast food fallen or
the floor from Johnnys dish, they SEIZE
the flake for the good of the tribe. NJ
ant nibbIes on it, but all try to carry
1t away to the hill. Ten take hold
of 1t and painfully drag it along The
rug. while scores of others follow, ready
to take up the huge task when the
first workers falter.
Other scores go on ahead, clearing
the road, across the rug, along the
stairway, over beyond the fireplace
skirting the windows, down to thu
Dashboard, along invisible routes within
| the walls, away to the secret place
where the national life of the ants
! functions.
The efforts of the householder tt
stamp them out are extremely prob
lematical Often the spreading o.
pyrethrum powder in any one of it.
! trade forms, seems to do great dea
of good.
Sometimes the ants merely go into
council and change their road. Ever
if many ants disappear, their breathing
clogged beyond hope by the fine pow
der, hundreds of others take theil
place.
Their terrible, heartless doctrine i
that the individual does not count. TIL,
God of the Christians, who sees ever
q sparrow fall, is never prayed to BY
the ants. They go their way withou
benefit of clergy knowing nothing o.
their Creator, caring nothing, hoping
nothing.
Knowing nothingl That is where
the shudder comes in, to a human
being, as he contemplates that long lint
of living, struggling things, and recalls
the pertinent remark of small Eugene
who, looking down upon a square foo
of them, in a solid huddle, said
Mister, there's a lot of them things il
| the world"