Edge of the Jungle, page 49 by William Beebe
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keted with a gay, parti-colored covering of fuzz.
All this strange work was hurried and carried on under great excitement. The scores of big soldiers on guard appeared rather ill at ease, as if they had wandered by mistake into the wrong department. They sauntered about, bumped into larvæ, turned and fled. A constant stream of workers from the nest brought hundreds more larvæ; and no sooner had they been planted and débris of sorts sifted over them, than they began spinning. A few had already swathed themselves in cocoons--exceedingly thin coverings of pinkish silk. As this took place out of the nest,--in the jungle they must be covered with wood and leaves. The vital necessity for this was not apparent, for none of this débris was incorporated into the silk of the cocoons, which were clean and homogeneous. Yet the hundreds of ants gnawed and tore and labored to gather this little dust, as if their very lives depended upon it.
With my hand-lens focused just beyond mandible reach of the biggest soldier, I leaned forward from my insulated chair, hovering like a great astral eye looking down at this marvelously important business of little lives. Here were thousands of army ants, not killing, not carrying booty, nor even suspended quiescent as organic molecules in the structure of the home, yet in feverish activity equaled only by battle, making ready for the great change of their foster offspring. I watched the very first thread of silk drawn between the larva and the outside world, and in an incredibly short time the cocoon was outlined in a tissue-thin, transparent aura, within which the tenant could be seen skilfully weaving its own shroud.
When first brought from the nest, the larvæ lay quite straight and still; but almost at once they bent far over in the spinning position. Then some officious worker would come along, and the unfortunate larva would be snatched up, carried off, and jammed down in some neighboring empty space, like a bolt of cloth rearranged