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THE SECOND BOOKE 181
ant, toward another emmets nest, from which many
other ants came, as it were to meet them by the way
to parly with them, who after they had continued
together awhile, they which came last, returned backe
to consult (as you may imagine) with their fellowcitizens,
and because they could hardly come to
any capitulation, they made two or three voyages to*
and fro. In the end, the last come brought unto the
other a worme from their habitation, as for a ransome
of the dead, which worme the first company tooke upon
their backes, and carried it home, leaving the dead
body unto the other. Loe, here the interpretation
that Cleanthes gave it: Witnessing thereby that those
creatures which have no voice at all, have nevertheless
mutual commerce and enterchangeable communication,
whereof if we be not partakers, it is onely our fault;
and therefore doe we fondly t6 censure it. And they
yet produce divers other effects, farre surpassing our
capacity, and so farre out of the reach of our imitation
that even our thoughts are unable to conceive them.
Many hold opinion that in the last and famous seafight
which Autonie lost against Augustus, his admiralgalley
was in her course staied by that little fish the
Latines call Remora, and the English a Suck-stone,
whose property is to stay any ship he can fasten himselfe
unto. And the Emperour Caligula, sailing with
a great fleet along the coast of Romania, his owne
galley was suddenly staied by such a fish, which he
caused to be taken sticking fast to the keele, moodily
raging that so little a creature had the power to force
both sea and winde, and the violence of all his oares,
onely with her bil sticking to his galley (for it is a
kinde of shellfish) and was much more amazed when
he perceived the fish being brought aboord his ship to
have no longer that powerfull vertue which it had
being in the sea. A certaine citizen of Cyzicum, whilom
purchased unto himselfe the reputation to be an excellent
mathematician, because he had learn't the quality
of the hedge-hogge, whose property is to build his hole
or denne open diverse waies, and toward severall winds,