Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of ScienceAllen, Grant
Science
Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
Allen, Grant
Science
But there are other degraded ants, whose life-history may be humbly
presented to the consideration of the Anti-Slavery Society, as speaking
more eloquently than any other known fact for the demoralising effect of
slaveowning upon the slaveholders themselves. The Swiss rufescent ant is
a species so long habituated to rely entirely upon the services of
slaves that it is no longer able to manage its own affairs when deprived
by man of its hereditary bondsmen. It has lost entirely the art of
constructing a nest; it can no longer tend its own young, whom it leaves
entirely to the care of negro nurses; and its bodily structure even has
changed, for the jaws have lost their teeth, and have been converted
into mere nippers, useful only as weapons of war. The rufescent ant, in
fact, is a purely military caste, which has devoted itself entirely to
the pursuit of arms, leaving every other form of activity to its slaves
and dependents. Officers of the old school will be glad to learn that
this military insect is dressed, if not in scarlet, at any rate in very
decent red, and that it refuses to be bothered in any way with questions
of transport or commissariat. If the community changes its nest, the
masters are carried on the backs of their slaves to the new position,
and the black ants have to undertake the entire duty of foraging and
bringing in stores of supply for their gentlemanly proprietors. Only
when war is to be made upon neighbouring nests does the thin red line
form itself into long file for active service. Nothing could be more
perfectly aristocratic than the views of life entertained and acted upon
by these distinguished slaveholders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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