es
aimlessly off, in as violently a hurry as ever. He does not remember to
have ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the way
home, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventures
he had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along.
Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a
very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it.

Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get
it, but thinks he got it "around here somewhere." Evidently the friend
contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly
antic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of that
grasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite
directions. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide
that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at
it again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow.
Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They lock
themselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then they
roll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to
haul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same old
insane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may,
the other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Instead
of giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against every
obstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leg
has been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally
dumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring
ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs
are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a
different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something
else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time
valueless enough to make an ant want to own it.

There in the Black Forest, on the mountainside, I saw an ant go through
with such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten times
his own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far gone to
resist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little ant--observing
that I was noticing--turned him on his back, sunk his fangs into his
throat, lifted him into the air and started vigorously off with him,
stumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's