more powerful slave ants, poison or assassinate the queen,
and establish themselves by sheer usurpation in the queenless nest.
'Gradually,' says Sir John Lubbock, 'even their bodily force dwindled
away under the enervating influence to which they had subjected
themselves, until they sank to their present degraded condition--weak in
body and mind, few in numbers, and apparently nearly extinct, the
miserable representatives of far superior ancestors maintaining a
precarious existence as contemptible parasites of their former slaves.'
One may observe in passing that these wretched do-nothings cannot have
been the ants which Solomon commended to the favourable consideration of
the sluggard; though it is curious that the text was never pressed into
the service of defence for the peculiar institution by the advocates of
slavery in the South, who were always most anxious to prove the
righteousness of their cause by most sure and certain warranty of Holy
Scripture.

BIG ANIMALS

'The Atlantosaurus,' said I, pointing affectionately with a wave of my
left hand to all that was immortal of that extinct reptile, 'is
estimated to have had a total length of one hundred feet, and was
probably the very biggest lizard that ever lived, even in Western
America, where his earthly remains were first disinhumed by an
enthusiastic explorer.'

'Yes, yes,' my friend answered abstractedly. 'Of course, of course;
things were all so very big in those days, you know, my dear fellow.'

'Excuse me,' I replied with polite incredulity; 'I really don't know to
what particular period of time the phrase "in those days" may be
supposed precisely to refer.'

My friend shuffled inside his coat a little uneasily. (I will admit that
I was taking a mean advantage of him. The professorial lecture in
private life, especially when followed by a strict examination, is quite
undeniably a most intolerable nuisance.) 'Well,' he said, in a crusty
voice, after a moment's hesitation, 'I mean, you know, in geological
times ... well, there, my dear fellow, things used all to be so _very_
big in those days, usedn't they?'

I took compassion upon him and let him off easily. 'You've had enough of
the museum,' I said with magnanimous self-denial. 'The Atlantosaurus has
broken the camel's back. Let's go and have a quiet cigarette in the park
outside.'

But if you suppose, reader, that I am going to carry my forbearance so
far as to let you, too, off the remaind