The Red Ants 



stealing column varies: it all depends on 

 whether Black Ants are plentiful in the neigh- 

 bourhood. At times, ten or twenty yards suf- 

 fice; at others, it requires fifty, a hundred or 

 more. I once saw the expedition go beyond 

 the garden. The Amazons scaled the sur- 

 rounding wall, which was thirteen feet high 

 at that point, climbed over it and went on 

 a little farther, into a corn-field. As for the 

 route taken, this is a matter of indifference 

 to the marching column. Bare ground, thick 

 grass, a heap of dead leaves or stones, brick- 

 work, a clump of shrubs: all are crossed with- 

 out any marked preference for one sort of 

 road rather than another. 



What is rigidly fixed is the path home, 

 which follows the outward track in all its 

 windings and all its crossings, however diffi- 

 cult. Laden with their plunder, the Red Ants 

 return to the nest by the same road, often an 

 exceedingly complicated one, which the exigen- 

 cies of the chase compelled them to take 

 originally. They repass each spot which they 

 passed at first; and this is to them a matter 

 of such imperative necessity that no additional 

 fatigue nor even the gravest danger can make 

 them alter the track. 



I3S 



