any bird or other animal that we
domesticate and observe. The clearness and exactness of the few of the
hen's speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate
to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend--in a word, that
she can converse. And this argument is also applicable in the case of
others of the great army of the Unrevealed. It is just like man's vanity
and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull
perceptions. Now as to the ant--

Y.M. Yes, go back to the ant, the creature that--as you seem to
think--sweeps away the last vestige of an intellectual frontier between
man and the Unrevealed.

O.M. That is what she surely does. In all his history the aboriginal
Australian never thought out a house for himself and built it. The ant
is an amazing architect. She is a wee little creature, but she builds a
strong and enduring house eight feet high--a house which is as large
in proportion to her size as is the largest capitol or cathedral in the
world compared to man's size. No savage race has produced architects
who could approach the air in genius or culture. No civilized race has
produced architects who could plan a house better for the uses proposed
than can hers. Her house contains a throne-room; nurseries for her
young; granaries; apartments for her soldiers, her workers, etc.; and
they and the multifarious halls and corridors which communicate with
them are arranged and distributed with an educated and experienced eye
for convenience and adaptability.

Y.M. That could be mere instinct.

O.M. It would elevate the savage if he had it. But let us look further
before we decide. The ant has soldiers--battalions, regiments, armies;
and they have their appointed captains and generals, who lead them to
battle.

Y.M. That could be instinct, too.

O.M. We will look still further. The ant has a system of government; it
is well planned, elaborate, and is well carried on.

Y.M. Instinct again.

O.M. She has crowds of slaves, and is a hard and unjust employer of
forced labor.

Y.M. Instinct.

O.M. She has cows, and milks them.

Y.M. Instinct, of course.

O.M. In Texas she lays out a farm twelve feet square, plants it, weeds
it, cultivates it, gathers the crop and stores it away.

Y.M. Instinct, all the same.

O.M. The ant discriminates between friend and stranger. Sir John Lubbock
took ants from two different nests, made them drunk with whiskey and
laid th