Word: ant
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Myrmecologists divide ants into eight series, have listed 6,000 species. Says Maeterlinck: all the higher species have a communistic unselfishness inconceivable to Man, a consequent social discipline superior to any human government. Some ants have organized armies, wage offensive wars; some own slaves; some keep herds of "cattle" (plant lice); some cultivate mushrooms. For non-carnivorous ants (the great majority) the greatest pleasure in life seems to be disgorging for others the food they have laboriously ac cumulated: "For her [the ant] regurgitation must be an act as delightful as is for us the degustation of the choicest meats...
Said Solomon (rhetorically) to the Sluggard: "Go to the ant!" No sluggard, but a scientific inquirer whose researches have not damped his mystical inquisitiveness, Maurice Maeterlinck has gone to the ant, observed its actions, noted down many a formicine phenomenon in this exciting little book...
...Surgical Ants. When Indian warriors return home after inter-tribal clashes, tribeswomen anesthetize their wounds with ginger. Beside the "doctor" is a jar containing a species of ferocious, strong-jawed ants. After drawing the lips of the wound together, the "doctor" holds an ant close to the wound, lets it bite. If and when the mandibles strike on each side of the wound, the ant's body is snipped off. The death grip of the head holds the wound together. Often as many as six ants are used on large wounds. Thus drawn together the wound is smeared with...
...civilization, anxious to study the effect of uncooked foods on the digestion and sunlight on the skin, he projected the Galapagos venture. First he visited a dentist who extracted all his fallible human teeth and substituted durable artificial ones. Then he set forth with a devoted female assist ant...