rt, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus.[63]
He saw this unequal combat from afar,--for the blacks were nearly twice
the size of the reds; 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 commenced his
operations near the root of his right foreleg, 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 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, 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
was not one hireling there. I have 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 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, exposing what vitals he had there to
the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate 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 b