It was about 20 feet
long, as well as I can remember, and perhaps an inch in diameter. At one
o'clock I returned to lunch. My black servant pointed, with a broad grin
on his intelligent features, to the wooden ceiling. I looked up; in
those three hours the carpenter-ants had reconstructed the entire
gallery, and were doubtless mocking me at their ease, with their
uplifted antennae, under that safe shelter. I retired at once from the
unequal contest. It was clearly impossible to go on knocking down a
fresh gallery every three hours of the day or night throughout a whole
lifetime.
Ants, says Mr. Wallace, without one touch of satire, 'force themselves
upon the attention of everyone who visits the tropics.' They do, indeed,
and that most pungently; if by no other method, at least by the simple
and effectual one of stinging. The majority of ants in every nest are of
course neuters, or workers, that is to say, strictly speaking,
undeveloped females, incapable of laying eggs. But they still retain the
ovipositor, which is converted into a sting, and supplied with a
poisonous liquid to eject afterwards into the wound. So admirably
adapted to its purpose is this beautiful provision of nature, that some
tropical ants can sting with such violence as to make your leg swell and
confine you for some days to your room; while cases have even been known
in which the person attacked has fainted with pain, or had a serious
attack of fever in consequence.
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