Volume 44, Number 12 · July 17, 1997
Child's Play
By Richard Jenkyns
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder
by Lawrence Weschler
Vintage, 172 pp., $12.00 (paper)
Lawrence Weschler begins with the stink ant (where, he wants us to ask, is this going to lead?). Sometimes the stink ant of the Cameroonian rain forests inhales the spore of a fungus, which invades its brain and drives it crazy. For the first time it leaves its natural habitat on the forest floor and climbs the stalks of vines and ferns, up and up, until it finally fixes itself by sinking its mandibles into the plant, and so dies. The fungus continues to consume the ant's brain, and after a fortnight or so a spike erupts from the ant's head, with an orange tip from which more spores rain down to infect more ants and begin the cycle yet again.
Review, 4017 words
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