Edge of the Jungle Part 11

In some way an imponderable amount of oil or dissolved wax is extruded and mixed with the drop, an invisible sh.e.l.lac which toughens the bubble and gives it an astounding glutinous endurance. As long as the abdominal air-pump can be extended into the atmosphere, so long does the pile of bubbles grow until the insect is deep buried, and to penetrate this is as unpleasant an achievement for small marauders as to force a cobweb entanglement. I have draped a big pile of bubbles around the beak of an insect-eating bird, and watched it shake its head and wipe its beak in evident disgust at the clinging oily films.

In the north we have the bits of fine white foam which we characteristically call frog-spittle, but these tropic relatives have bigger bellows and their covering is like the interfering ma.s.s of films which emerges from the soap-bubble bowl when a pipe is thrust beneath the surface and that delicious gurgling sound produced.

The most marvelous part of the whole thing is that the undistilled well which the Bubble Bug taps would often overwhelm it in an instant, either by the burning acidity of its composition, or the rubber coating of death into which it hardens in the air. Yet with this current of lava or vitriol, our Bug does three wonderful things, it distills sweet water for its present protective cell of bubbles, it draws purest nourishment for continual energy to run its bellows and pump, and simultaneously it fills its blood and tissues with a pungent flavor, which in the future will be a safeguard against the attacks of birds and lizards. Little by little its wings swell to full spread and strength, muscles are fas.h.i.+oned in its hind legs, which in time will shoot it through great distances of s.p.a.ce, and pigment of the most brilliant yellow and black forms on its wing covers. When at last it shuts down its little still and creeps forth through the filmy veil, it is immature no longer, but a brilliant frog-hopper, sitting on the most conspicuous leaves, trusting by pigmental warning to advertise its inedibility, and watchful for a mate, so that the future may hold no dearth of Bubble Bugs.

On my first tramp each season in the tropical jungle, I see the legionary army ants hastening on their way to battle, and the leaf-cutters plodding along, with chlorophyll hods over their shoulders, exactly as they did last year, and the year preceding, and probably a hundred thousand years before that. The Colony Egos of army and leaf-cutters may quite reasonably be cla.s.sified according to Kingdom. The former, with carnivorous, voracious, nervous, vitally active members, seems an intangible, animal-like organism; while the stolid, vegetarian, unemotional, weather-swung Attas, resemble the flowing sap of the food on which they subsist--vegetable.

Yet, whatever the simile, the net of unconscious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. This was manifested by the most significant and spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in the world of insects.

One year and a half ago I studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or army ants.[3] Now, eighteen months later, apparently the same army appeared and made a similar nest of their own bodies, in the identical spot near the door of the outhouse, where I had found them before.

Again we had to break up the temporary colony, and killed about three-quarters of the colony with various deadly chemicals.

[Footnote 3: See page 58.]

In spite of all the tremendous slaughter, the Ecitons, in late afternoon, raided a small colony of Wasps-of-the-Painted-Nest. These little chaps construct a round, sub-leaf carton-home, as large as a golf ball, which carries out all the requirements of counter shading and of ruptive markings. The flattened, shadowed under surface was white, and most of the sloping walls dark brown, down which extended eight white lines, following the veins of the leaf overhead. The side close to the stem of the leaf, and consequently always in deep shadow, was pure white. The eaves catching high lights were black. All this marvelous merging with leaf tones went for naught when once an advance Eciton scout located the nest.

As the deadly mob approached, the wasplets themselves seemed to realize the futility of offering battle, and the entire colony of forty-four gathered in a forlorn group on a neighboring leaf, while their little castle was rifled--larvae and pupae torn from their cells and rushed down the stems to the chaos which was raging in Eciton's own home. The wasps could guard against optical discovery, but the blind Ecitons had senses which transcended vision, if not even scent.

Late that night, our lanterns showed the remnants of the Eciton army wandering aimlessly about, making near approach impossible, but apparently lacking any definite concerted action.

At six o'clock the following morning I started out for a swim, when at the foot of the laboratory steps I saw a swiftly-moving, broad line of army ants on safari, pa.s.sing through the compound to the beach. I traced them back under the servants' quarters, through two clumps of bamboos to the outhouse. Later I followed along the column down to the river sand, through a dense ma.s.s of underbrush, through a hollow log, up the bank, back through light jungle--to the outhouse again, and on a large fallen log, a few feet beyond the spot where their nest had been, the ends of the circle _actually came together_! It was the most astonis.h.i.+ng thing, and I had to verify it again and again before I could believe the evidence of my eyes. It was a strong column, six lines wide in many places, and the ants fully believed that they were on their way to a new home, for most were carrying eggs or larvae, although many had food, including the larvae of the Painted Nest Wasplets. For an hour at noon during heavy rain, the column weakened and almost disappeared, but when the sun returned, the lines rejoined, and the revolution of the vicious circle continued.

There were several places which made excellent points of observation, and here we watched and marveled. Careful measurement of the great circle showed a circ.u.mference of twelve hundred feet. We timed the laden Ecitons and found that they averaged two to two and three-quarter inches a second. So a given individual would complete the round in about two hours and a half. Many guests were plodding along with the ants, mostly staphylinids of which we secured five species, a brown histerid beetle, a tiny chalcid, and several Phorid flies, one of which was winged.

The fat Histerid beetle was most amusing, getting out of breath every few feet, and abruptly stopping to rest, turning around in its tracks, standing almost on its head, and allowing the swarm of ants to run up over it and jump off. Then on it would go again, keeping up the terrific speed of two and a half inches a second for another yard. Its color was identical with the Ecitons' armor, and when it folded up, nothing could harm it. Once a worker stopped and antennaed it suspiciously, but aside from this, it was accepted as one of the line of marchers. Along the same route came the tiny Phorid flies, wingless but swift as shadows, rus.h.i.+ng from side to side, over ants, leaves, debris, impatient only at the slowness of the army.

All the afternoon the insane circle revolved; at midnight the hosts were still moving, the second morning many had weakened and dropped their burdens, and the general pace had very appreciably slackened.

But still the blind grip of instinct held them. On, on, on they must go! Always before in their nomadic life there had been a goal--a sanctuary of hollow tree, snug heart of bamboos--surely this terrible grind must end somehow. In this crisis, even the Spirit of the Army was helpless. Along the normal paths of Eciton life he could inspire endless enthusiasm, illimitable energy, but here his material units were bound upon the wheel of their perfection of instinct. Through sun and cloud, day and night, hour after hour there was found no Eciton with individual initiative enough to turn aside an ant's breadth from the circle which he had traversed perhaps fifteen times: the masters of the jungle had become their own mental prey.

Fewer and fewer now came along the well worn path; burdens littered the line of march, like the arms and accoutrements thrown down by a retreating army. At last a scanty single line struggled past--tired, hopeless, bewildered, idiotic and thoughtless to the last. Then some half dead Eciton straggled from the circle along the beach, and threw the line behind him into confusion. The desperation of total exhaustion had accomplished what necessity and opportunity and normal life could not. Several others followed his scent instead of that leading back toward the outhouse, and as an amoeba gradually flows into one of its own pseudopodia, so the forlorn hope of the great Eciton army pa.s.sed slowly down the beach and on into the jungle. Would they die singly and in bewildered groups, or would the remnant draw together, and again guided by the super-mind of its Mentor lay the foundation of another army, and again come to nest in my outhouse?

Thus was the ending still unfinished, the finale buried in the future--and in this we find the fascination of Nature and of Science.

Who can be bored for a moment in the short existence vouchsafed us here; with dramatic beginnings barely hidden in the dust, with the excitement of every moment of the present, and with all of cosmic possibility lying just concealed in the future, whether of Betelgeuze, of Amoeba or--of ourselves? _Vogue la galere!_

APPENDIX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES

Page Line

4 26 Moriche Oriole; _Icterus chrysocephalus_ (Linne)

8 10 Toad; _Bufo guttatus Schneid_.

18 3 Bat; _Furipterus horrens_ (F. Cuv.)

4 Large Bats; _Vampyrus spectrum_ (Linne)

6 Vampire Bats; _Desmodus rotundus_ (Geoff.)

22 5 Giant Catfish, Boom-boom; _Doras granulosus_ Valen.

23 5 Kiskadee; _Pitangus s. sulphuratus_ (Linne)

25 26 Parrakeets; _Touit batavica_ (Bodd.)

26 Great Black Orioles; _Ostinops d. dec.u.ma.n.u.s_ (Pall.)

26 5 House Wrens; _Troglodytes musculus clarus_ Berl. and Hart

29 5 Coati-mundi; _Nasua n. nasua_ (Linne)

32 2 Frog; _Phyllomedusa_ sp.

34 18 Mazaruni Daisies; _Sipanea pratensis_ Aubl.

20 b.u.t.ton Weed; _Spermacoce_ sp.

36 23 Melancholy Tyrant; _Tyrannus melancholicus satrapa_ (Cab. and Hein.)

37 2 Monarch; _Anosia plexippus_ (Linne)

38 7 Red-breasted Blue Chatterer; _Cotinga cotinga_ Linne

18 Yellow Papilio; _Papilio thoas_ Linne

49 26 Parrakeets; _Touit batavica_ (Bodd.)

52 3 Purple-throated Cotinga; _Cotinga cayana_ (Linne)

53 15 Dark-breasted Mourner; _Lipaugus simplex_ Licht.

54 26 Toucans; _Ramphastus vitellinus_ Licht.

59 6 White-fronted Ant-bird; _Pithys albifrons_ (Linne)

60 16 Army Ants; _Eciton burch.e.l.li_ Westwood

97 10 Great Green Kingfisher; _Chloroceryle amazona_ (Lath.)

11 Tiny Emerald Kingfisher; _Chloroceryle americana_ (Gmel.)

103 25 Gecko; _Thecadactylus rapicaudus_ (Houtt.)

109 8 Howling Monkeys; _Alouatta seniculus macconnelli_ Elliot

113 7 Bower Bird; _Ptilonorhynchus violaceus_ (Vieill.)

116 24 Ca.s.sava; _Janipha manihot_ Kth.