The Red Ants 



return journey made by another road, which 

 would wind round and avoid the fatal diff. 

 Not at all. The nymph-laden band resumed 

 the parlous path and the Gold-fish received 

 a double windfall: the Ants and their prizes. 

 Rather than alter its track, the column was 

 decimated a second time. 



It is not easy to find the way home again 

 after a distant expedition, during which there 

 have been various sorties, nearly always by 

 different paths; and this difficulty makes it 

 absolutely necessary for the Amazons to re- 

 turn by the same road by which they went. 

 The insect has no choice of route, if it would 

 not be lost on the way : it must come back by 

 the track which it knows and which it has 

 lately travelled. The Processionary Caterpil- 

 lars, when they leave their nest and go to an- 

 other branch, on another tree, in search of a 

 type of leaf more to their taste, carpet the 

 course with silk and are able to return home 

 by following the threads stretched along their 

 road. This is the most elementary method 

 open to the insect liable to stray on its ex- 

 cursions: a silken path brings It home again. 

 The Processionaries, with their unsophisti- 

 cated traffic-laws, are very different from the 

 137 



