Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 had debated gravely over the means of communication among ants. They had ob- served that a single ant finding a bit of booty too large for him to handle alone would return to the ant-city and retum with others. From that one instance they deduced a language of gestures made with the antennae. Burl had no wise theories. He merely knew facts, but he knew that the ants had some form of speech or transmission of ideas. Now, however, he was moving cau- tiously along toward the stamping-grounds of his tribe, in complete ignorance of the black blanket of living creatures creeping over the ground toward him. A million tragedies marked the progress of the insect army. There was a tiny col- ony of mining bees—Zebra bees—a single mother, some four feet long, had dug a huge gallery with some ten cells, in which she laid her eggs and fed her grubs with hard-gathered pollen. The grubs had waxed fat and large, became bees, and laid eggs in their turn, within the gallery their mother had dug out for them. Ten such bulky insects now foraged busily for grubs within the ancestral home, while the founder of the colony had grown draggled and wingless with the passing of time. Unable to forage, herself, the old bee became the guardian of the nest or hive, as is the custom among the mining peeg. She closed the opening of the hive with her head, making a living barrier within the entrance, and withdrawing to give entrance and exit only to duly au- thenticated members of the colony. The ancient and draggled concierge ef the underground dwelling was at her post when the wave of army ants swept over her. Tiny, evil-smelling feet trampled upon her. mandible and sting for the sanctity of the ‘hive. In a moment she was a shaggy mass of biting ants, rending and tearing at her chitinous armour. The old bee fought madly, viciously, sounding a buzzing alarm to the colonists yet within the hive. They emerged, fighting as they came, for the gallery leading down was a dark flood of small insects. For a few moments a battle such as She emerged to fight with THE ARGOSY, would make an epic was in progress. Ten huge bees, each four to five feet long, fight- ing with legs and jaw, wing and mandible, with all the ferocity of as many tigers. The tiny, vicious ants covered them, snap- ping at their multiple eyes, biting at the tender joints in their armour—sometimes releasing the larger prey to leap upon an injured comrade wounded by the huge crea- ture they battled in common. The fight, however, could have but one ending. Struggle as the bees might, hercu- lean as their efforts might be, they weres powerless against the incredible numbers of their assailants, who tore them into tiny fragments and devoured them. Before the last shread of the hive’s defenders had van- ished, the hive itself was gutted alike of the grubs it had contained and the food brought to the grubs by such weary effort of the mature bees. (he army ants went on. Only an empty gallery remained, that and a few fragments of tough armour, unappetising even to the omniverous ants. Burl was. meditatively inspecting the scene of a recent tragedy, where rent and scraped fragments of a great beetle’s shiny casing lay upon the ground. A greater beetle had come upon the first and slain. him. Burl was looking upon the remains of the meal. Three or four minims, little ants barely six inches long, foraged industriously among the bits. I new ant city was+to be formed, and the queen-ant lay hidden a half-mile away. These were the first hatchlings, who would feed the larger ants on whom would fall the great work of the ant-city. Burl ignored them, searching with his eyes for a spear or weapon of some sort. . Behind him the clicking roar, the high- pitched stridulations of the horde of army ants, rose in volume. Burl turned disgust- edly away. ‘The best he could find in the way of a weapon was a fiercely toothed hind-leg. He picked it up, and an angry whine rose from the ground. One of the black minims was working busily to detach a fragment of flesh from the joint of the leg, and Burl had snatched the morsel from him. The little creature was hardly half a foot in Jength, but it cComiclbooks.com