THERE are other armies in South Africa besides the Boers and the British; armies of very little folk, which go out on foraging expeditions when their colonies stand in need of supplies — forays planned and executed with military precision, and, as a general thing, uniformly successful.

I speak of an army of ants.

A close observer, residing in South Africa, describes one of these forays in the following way:

"The army, which I estimated to number about fifteen thousand ants, started from their home in the mud walls of a hut and marched in the direction of a small mound of fresh earth, but a few yards distant. The head of the column halted on reaching the foot of the mound and waited for the rest of the force to arrive at the place of operations, which evidently was to be the mound of fresh earth. When the remainder had arrived and halted so that the entire army was assembled, a number of ants detached themselves from the main body and began to ascend to the top of the mound, while the others began moving so as to encircle the base of the mound.

"Very soon a number from the detachment which had ascended the mound, or lilliputian kopje, evidently the attacking party, entered the loose earth and speedily returned, each bearing a cricket or a young grasshopper, dead, which he deposited upon the ground and then returned for a fresh load. Those who had remained on the outside of the mound, took up the crickets and grasshoppers as they were brought out and bore them down to the base of the hill, returning at once for fresh victims. Soon the contents of the mound seemed to be exhausted, and then the whole force returned home, each ant carrying his burden of food for the community."

My very young readers will be surprised, no doubt, to hear me speak of wasps as cement-makers, or paper makers, but such, in truth, they are. You can form no idea of the industry and toil these little folk expend upon the structure they call home. Nothing pleases them better than to find an old fence rail covered with a light gray fuzz of woody fiber loosened from decaying wood by excessive soakings of rain. Dozens of these little pulp gatherers will descend upon the rail, and as fast as each of them obtains a load away he flies to the place where the home building is already going on.

This may be in a clump of bushes near a stream, and as fast as they deposit their load of fiber down they fly to the stream, and having secured a mouthful of water back they go to the nest to beat the fiber into a thin sheet, which they deftly join to the main body, the jointure being imperceptible. Such a throng of workers coming and going, some to the fence, some to the nest, some to the brook, each addition to the structure being the tiniest mite, yet growing perceptibly under the united efforts of the little builders.

TAR. — One of the commonest substances met with in city or town is tar. A paper roof covered with tar makes a very good protection against sun and rain provided a suitable amount of gravel covers the tar. The kind of tar most used is called coal-tar or gas-tar. This is made at the gas factory from the distilling of soft coal. Tar that comes from different varieties of pine and spruce is used to cover ropes and hulls of ships. It is from his having some of it usually clinging to his hands and clothes that the sailor boy came to be called "Jack Tar," and from his fondness for the sea one of the royal family of England got the pet name of "Royal Tarry Breeks." It is strange that there has been no change in the work of getting this kind of tar from the wood for over twenty-three hundred years. The wood is placed in holes dug in the ground and covered carefully with turf so as to keep out the air and prevent too much burning.