I was not the only occupant of the tree; there were hundreds of other and more active travellers, who often stopped to think or converse with their fellows and then hurried on. I refer to the great, shining, black ants that have such a variety of meaningless nicknames. Its English cousin is asserted to be ill-tempered, if not venomous, and both Chaucer and Shakespeare refer to them as often mad and always treacherous. I saw nothing of this to-day. They were ever on the go and always in a hurry. They seemed not to dissociate me from the tree; perhaps thought me an odd excrescence and of no importance. No one thinks of himself as such, and I forced myself upon the attention of some of the hurrying throng. It was easy to intercept them, and they grew quickly frantic; but their fellows paid no attention to such as I held captive for the moment. I had a small paper box with me, and this I stuck full of pin-holes on every side and then put half a dozen of the ants in it. Holding it in the line of the insects’ march, it immediately became a source of wonderment, and every ant that came by stopped and parleyed with the prisoners. A few returned earthward, and then a number came together, but beyond this I could see nothing in the way of concerted action on the part of the ants at large looking towards succoring their captive fellows. Releasing them, these detained ants at once scattered in all directions, and the incident was quickly forgotten. Where were these ants going, and what was their purpose? I wondered. I was as near the tree’s top as I dared to go, but the ants went on, apparently to the very tips of the tiniest twigs, and not one that I saw came down laden or passed up with any burden. It is not to be supposed they had no purpose in so doing, but what? There is scarcely an hour when we are not called upon to witness just such aimless activity,—that is, aimless so far as we can determine.