Pear tree

Walden, [pp.154]. “Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. ‘Aeneas Sylvius,’ they say, ‘after giving a very circumstantial account of one contested with great obstinacy by a great small species on the trunk of a pear tree’ adds that ‘this action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the shole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.”