ss. But not
for ten minutes does anything like regular traffic begin again.

When carrying a large piece of leaf, and traveling at a fair rate of
speed, the ants average about a foot in ten seconds, although many go
the same distance in five. I tested the speed of an Atta, and then I
saw that its leaf seemed to have a peculiar-shaped bug upon it, and
picked it up with its bearer. Finding the blemish to be only a bit of
fungus, I replaced it. Half an hour later I was seated by a trail far
away, when suddenly my ant with the blemished spot appeared. It was
unmistakable, for I had noticed that the spot was exactly that of the
Egyptian symbol of life. I paced the trail, and found that seventy
yards away it joined the spot where I had first seen my friend. So,
with occasional spurts, he had done two hundred and ten feet in thirty
minutes, and this in spite of the fact that he had picked up a
supercargo.

Two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen, under the proper stimulus,
invariably result in water; two and two, considered calmly and without
passion, combine into four; the workings of instinct, especially in
social insects, is so mechanical that its results can almost be
demonstrated in formula; and yet here was my Atta leaf-carrier
burdened with a minim. The worker Attas vary greatly in size, as a
glance at a populous trail will show. They have been christened
_macrergates, desmergates_ and _micrergates_; or we may call the
largest Maxims, the average middle class Mediums, and the tiny chaps
Minims, and all have more or less separate functions in the ecology of
the colony. The Minims are replicas in miniature of the big chaps,
except that their armor is pale cinnamon rather than chestnut.
Although they can bite ferociously, they are too small to cut through
leaves, and they have very definite duties in the nest; yet they are
found with every leaf-cutting gang, hastening along with their larger
brethren, but never doing anything, that I could detect, at their
journey's end. I have a suspicion that the little Minims, who are very
numerous, function as light cavalry; for in case of danger they are as
eager at attack as the great soldiers, and the leaf-cutters, absorbed
in their arduous labor, would benefit greatly from the immunity
ensured by a flying corps of their little bulldog comrades.

I can readily imagine that these nestling Minims become weary and
foot-sore (like bank-clerks guarding a reservoir), and if instinct
a