THE TOWN. 93

 which may have tumbled from the ramparts.
 The offensive attitude of these thistles, brave
 in green and silver, and with pink cockades,
 is the only warlike thing about the peaceful
 fort, unless, indeed, one should except the
 ants; they use a crevice, or a widening seam
 between the great shell-stone blocks, for a
 fortress and arsenal and store-house. How
 very wide awake they are, these little bus-
 tling red and black soldiers, tugging and pull-
 ing at a burly dead bumble-bee, which one
 of their scouts has found lying in his bronze-
 gold armor under a clover-blossom! There is
 a spider who would dispute their right to for-
 age so near his preserves; but the ants per-
 sist. They bring the dead general (he is
 surely that, with his gold epaulets and the big
 pollen-laden top-boots) up to the crevice in
the wall, and in a moment they are safe from
their gray poison-swollen enemy. Doubtless
they think the fort was built for them, these
brave little soldiers. It answers their needs
so perfectly that such a thought would not be
unnatural.