ther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the 10 ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I 20 could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vise to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on 30 that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposi40 tion to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or Die. In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hill side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, 'or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was 50 some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afarfor the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red-he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and 60 commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent 70 chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, so whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism. displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why, here every ant was a Buttrick-"Fire! for God's sake, fire!"-and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There 90 was not one hireling there. I have 51. Achilles, a famous Greek hero of the Trojan War, who, because of a grievance, sulked in his tent until his friend Patroclus was killed. 81. Austerlitz, Dresden, victories of Napoleon in his Eastern campaigns; both sides lost heavily in the battles. 88, 90. Buttrick, Davis and Hosmer, heroes whose connection with the Battle of Concord is indicated by the context. no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least. I took up the chip on which the 10 three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, ex20 posing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their 30 bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he accom40 plished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hôtel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never 44. Hôtel des Invalides, a great hospital in Paris for sick and wounded soldiers. learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had 50 my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door. NOTES AND QUESTIONS 1. The selection is taken from Walden, an account by Thoreau of his experiences while living in a simple cabin by the shore of a New England lake. 2. Make a list of the historic allusions and references found in the selection and briefly explain the significance of each. 3. Mention some of the facts you have gained from the story or about which your knowledge has been extended. Library Reading. Other stories of insects or animals in Walden, Thoreau; "Ants," Lubbock (in The Beauties of Nature, pp. 58-69); "With Army Ants Somewhere in the Jungle,” Beebe (in The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1917). THE TORTOISE GILBERT WHITE A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the house where I am now visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination toward food, but in the height of summer grows voracious, and then 10 as the summer declines, its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are its favorite dish. In a neighboring village one was kept till, by tradition, it was supposed to be a hundred years old—an instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile! On the first of November I remarked 20 that the old tortoise began first to dig the ground, in order to the form ing of its hibernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day 10 in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth, by the heat of the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather and frosty mornings would have 20 quickened its operations. No part of its behavior ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and 30 running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were, on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach, as well as 40 lungs, and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened, it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it retires. Through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for as soon as the good The old Sussex tortoise has now become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in postchaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice 70 down to the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mold, and continues still concealed. As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life and propensities; and perceive already that, toward the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing-place in the so ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps a great part of the summer; for it goes to bed, in the longest days, at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest at every 90 shower, and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of 55. "the ox knoweth," etc., see Isaiah, i, 3. 10 wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than twothirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mold and put out its head; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead, and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence! a very amusing 20 occurrence! to see such a similarity of feeling between two qɛQέoxo, for so the Greeks call both the shellsnail and the tortoise. Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, Much too wise to walk into a well; 30 and has so much discernment as not to fall down an ha-ha, but will stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun, because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armor, "scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the um40 brella of a cabbage leaf or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids the heat in summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams by getting within the reflection of a fruit wall; and though he never has 21. EpÉOIXO, house-bearers. 28. Mr. Pope, Alexander Pope, English poet (1688-1744). read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and 50 admit every feeble ray. of Pitiable seems the condition this poor embarrassed reptile: to be cased in a suit of ponderous armor which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own. shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year, usually the beginning of 60 June, when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. NOTES AND QUESTIONS 1. This selection is taken from Gilbert White's A Natural History of Selborne. Through many years the author watched the habits of insects and animals and wrote down what he saw; how long had this land tortoise been kept under observation? 2. Discuss the following topics: the food of the tortoise; his preparation of winter quarters; his fear of rain; his attitude toward strangers. 3. Make a list of the author's observations concerning the old Sussex tortoise. Library Reading. "Turtle Eggs for Agassiz," Sharp (in The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1910). FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS LOUIS AGASSIZ Every zone of the earth's surface has its own animals, suited to the conditions under which they are meant to live; and, with the exception of those that accompany man in all his pilgrimages, and are subject to the same modifying influences by which he adapts his home and himself to all climates, animals are absolutely bound by the laws of their nature within the range assigned to them. Nor is this the case only on land, where river banks, lake shores, and mountain ranges might be supposed to form the impassable boundaries that keep ani10 mals within certain limits; but the ocean, as well as the land, has its faunæ and flora bound within their respective zoological and botanical provinces; and a wall of granite is not more impassable to a marine animal than that ocean line, fluid, and flowing, and ever-changing though it be, on which is written for him, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther." 20 One word as to the effect of pressure on animals will explain this. We all live under the pressure of the atmosphere. Now, thirty-two feet under the sea doubles that pressure, since a column of water of that height is equal in weight to the pressure of one atmosphere. At the depth of thirty-two feet, then, any marine animal is under the pressure of two 30 atmospheres-that of the air, which surrounds our globe, and of a weight of water equal to it; at sixty-four feet he is under the pressure of three atmospheres, and so on-the weight of one atmosphere being always added for every thirty-two feet of depth. There is a great difference in the sensitiveness of animals to this pressure. Some fishes live at a great depth, and 40 find the weight of water genial to them; while others would be killed at once by the same pressure; and the latter naturally seek the shallow waters. Every fisherman knows that he must throw a long line for halibut, while with a common fishing-rod he will catch plenty of perch from the rocks near the shore; and the differ18. Hitherto, etc., see Job, xxxviii, 11. ently colored bands of seaweed revealed by low tides show that the 50 floræ as well as the fauna of the ocean have their precise boundaries. Of all air-breathing animals, none exhibits a more surprising power of adapting itself to great and rapid changes of external influences than the condor. It may be seen feeding on the seashore under a burning tropical sun, and then, rising from its repast, it floats up among the highest 60 summits of the Andes, and is lost to sight beyond them, miles above the line of perpetual snow, where the temperature must be lower than that of the Arctics. But even the condor, sweeping at one flight from tropic heat to arctic cold, although it passes through greater changes of temperature, does not undergo such changes cf pressure as a fish that rises from a 70 depth of sixty-four feet to the surface of the sea; for the former remains within the limits of one atmosphere; while the latter, at a depth of sixty-four feet, is under a weight equal to that of three such atmospheres, which is reduced to one when it reaches the sea-level. The change is proportionally greater for those fishes that come from a depth of several hundred feet. 80 These laws of limitation in space explain many facts in the growth of coral reefs that would be otherwise inexplicable, and which I now will endeavor to make clear to my readers. For a long time it was supposed that the reef-builders inhabited very deep waters, for they were sometimes brought up on sounding-lines from a depth of many hundreds, or even 90 thousands, of feet, and it was taken for granted that they must have had their home where they were found; but the facts recently ascertained respecting the subsidence of ocean-bottoms have shown that the foundation of a coral wall may have sunk far |