96 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



thickly pressed together, awaiting the word of command from 

 the front. When I turned back to the obstacle, I saw with 

 astonishment that the loads had been laid aside by more than a 

 foot's length of the column, one imitating the other. And 

 now work began on both sides of the branch, and in about half 

 an hour a tunnel was made beneath it. Each ant then took up 

 its burden again, and the march was resumed in the most per- 

 fect order. 



A mijofration of these ants is thus described by the same 

 observer : 



The road led towards a cocoa plantation, and here I soon 

 discovered the building which I afterwards visited daily. As I 

 again went thither one day I was met, at a considerable dis- 

 tance from the nest, by a closely pressed column coming thence, 

 and all the ants laden with leaves, beetles, pupae, butterflies, 

 ifec. ; the nearer I came to the nest, the greater was the 

 activity. It was soon plain to me that the ants were in the 

 act of leaving their dwelling, and I walked along the train 

 to discover the new abode. They had gone for some distance 

 along the old road, and had then made a new one through the 

 grass to a cooler place, lying rather higher. The grass on the 

 new road was all bitten off close to the ground, and thousands 

 were busy caiTying the path on to the new building. At the 

 new home itself was an unusual stir of life. There were all 

 sorts of labourers architects, builders, carpenters, sappers, 

 helpers. A number were busy digging a hole in the ground, 

 and they carried out little pellets of earth and laid them 

 together on end to make a wall. Others drew along little twigs, 

 straws, and grass-stalks, and put them near the place of build- 

 ing. I was anxious to know why they had quitted their old 

 home, and when the departure was complete, I dug it up with 

 a spade. At a depth of about a foot and a half I found several 

 tunnels of a large marmot species, the terror of cocoa planters, 

 because in making their passages they gnaw off the thickest 

 roots of the cocoa plants. The interior of the ant-hill had ap- 

 parently fallen in through these mines. Unfortunately I was 

 unable to follow further the progress of the new building, for 1 

 was obliged to leave the next day for San Juan del Sur. When 

 I returned at the end of a week the building was finished, and 

 the whole colony was again busy with the leaves of the coffee 

 plants. 



Harvesting Ants (Atta). The ants which, so far as at 



