Army Ants - Tom Waits (汤姆·威兹)
Written by：Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan
The Whirligig Beetles are wary
And fast with an organ to detect the ripples
The Arachnid Moths lay their eggs inside
Other insects along the borders of fields
Or roads in clusters of white cocoons
The Ribbed Pine Borer is a longhorn beetle
Their antenna's are half the length
Of their body and they feed on dead red pine
Robber flies with their immobile heads
Inject a paralyzing fluid into
Their prey that they snatch from life in mid air
The Snow Flea's mode of locomotion
Strange and odd with a spiny tail mechanism
With hooks and a protracted tube from
The abdomen to enable moisture absorption
The female praying Mantis devours
The male while they are mating
The male sometimes continues copulating
Even after the female has bitten
Off his head and part of his upper torso
Every night wasps bite into the stem
Of a plant lock their mandibles into position
Stretch out at right angles to the stem and
With legs dangling they fall asleep
If one places a minute amount of liquor on a scorpion
It will instantly go mad and sting itself to death
The Bombardier Beetle when disturbed
Defends itself by emitting a series of explosions
Sometimes setting off 4 or 5 reports in succession
The noises sound like miniature popgun blasts
And are accompanied by a cloud of reddish
Coloured vile smelling fluid
It is commonly known that ants keep slaves
Certain species the so called Sanguinary
Ants in particular will raid the nests of other
Ant tribes and kill the queen and
Then kidnap many of the workers
The workers are brought back
To the captor's hive where they are
Coerced into performing menial tasks
And as we discussed last semester
The Army Ants will leave nothing but your bones
Perhaps you've encountered
Some of these insects in your communities
Displaying both their predatory and defense characteristics
While imbedded within the walls of flesh
And passing for what is most commonly recognized
As human
