sketches from nature with pen and pencil

Book cover
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ANTS. I MET to-day two straggling streams of workers moving along a hillside path, one to, the other fro—black-bodied, six-legged, with a most determined aspect, and an almost forbidding look (I forgot to mention that there was a magnifying glass in my hand). Apparently each and all were much pressed for time ; they hurried along singly, none speaking to his neighbour, each seemed intent on his own object, though the result was to be common; each bearing his own burden, not often helpful to others, except in the general cause, self-concentrated, eager, bitter, obstinate, self-willed, narrow, conscientious, ambitious. I followed them till I reached a disturbed ant-hillock which had been lately overthrown, and where the possessors were repairing their home with the most vehement industry. 'Who directs them ? Each seemed to be going onhis own hook, minding his own business, hardly conscious of the existence of anything but himself; " frightfully in earnest," as Disraeli once said of Gladstone. Yet the work was all in common; the community of goods, indeed, seemed absolute ; no one had any personal property whatever; house, stores, eggs, everything belonged to all—a most republican form of society! No one interfered with the rest; there was apparently no chief, overlooker, or director; yet the work went on apace, the repairing and building up of the ruined city " with neatness and dispatch." Some seized a pellet of earth or a stone, and dragged it backwards up the steep incline, using their hind legs to cling on. to rough places, while they hauled away at a weight greater far than that of their own bodies. Some hoisted aloft in their front arms, as it were, a stick or piece of grass twice or even thrice their own length, and moved forward bearing it in the air. Each addit...
add to favoritesadd

Users who have this book

Users who want this book

What readers are saying

What do you think? Write your own comment on this book!

write a comment

What do you think? Write your own comment on this book

Info about the book

Series:

Unknown

ISBN:

0881927910

Rating:

2.5/5 (3)

Your rating:

0/5

Languge:

English

Do you want to read a book that interests you? It’s EASY!

Create an account and send a request for reading to other users on the Webpage of the book!