ntioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing
at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler,
his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to
the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too
thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes
shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half
an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black
soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and still
living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies
at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he
was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with
only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to
divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he
accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window sill
in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and
spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not
know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much
thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of
the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings
excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and
carnage, of a human battle before my door.

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been
celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is
the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. "AEneas
Sylvius," say they, "after giving a very circumstantial account of one
contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk
of a pear tree," adds that "'This action was fought in the pontificate
of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an
eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the
greatest fidelity.' A similar engagement between great and small ants is
recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are
said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, and left those of
their giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to
the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden." The
battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five
years before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-S