The Anthill
Ever since I turned over a stone in my boyhood to discover th slow worm, I have been a turner of stones and boulders, and hay been fascinated by the things that live in the shelter of a rock. Oncc by moving a large stone, I found two voles at home, and the othe day I shifted a rock that seemed to divide a great anthill. The ligh 1 had brought to the galleries of the red ant produced extraordinar activity. The movement of the pupae or " eggs " began witl efficiency and speed. To and fro the workers travelled, crossing th fine crumbled soil of inclines and negotiating corners where traffi was heavy by some sort of rule that avoided chaos. In a little whil they had all disappeared, save one unfortunate worker who struggle to bring a white mummy up a slope that was hazardous with large pieces of coarse earth. Devil take the hindmost, 1 thought, but 1 wa wrong. Out of the dark mine beneath came one of the colony, scurrying and scrambling by a roundabout route that sometimes put him out of sight. Soon it was a co-operative' effort, and the last of the ants moved out of the sunlight. I replaced the rock, conscious of the tremendous upheaval I had caused and feeling, as I often do, that there is something cruel in the mildest curiosity about what lie beneath a stone.
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