PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 97 



fhat these creatures take their repose fit all hours in-» 

 differently ; for it cannot be supposed that they are 

 employed day and night without rest. 



I have related to you in this and former letters most 

 ©f the works and employments of ants, but as yet I have 

 given you no account of their roads and track-ways. — ' 

 Don't be alarmed, and imagine I am going- to repeat 

 to you the fable of the ancients, that they wear a path 

 in the stones^; for I suppose you will scarcely be 

 brought to believe that, as Hannibal cut a way for the 

 passage of his army over the Alps by means of vinegar, 

 so the ants may with equal efl'ect employ the formic 

 acid : but more species than one do really form roads 

 which lead from their formicaries into the adjoining 

 country. Gould, speaking of his jet~ant {F.fuUginosa)^ 

 says that they make several main track- ways, (streets 

 he calls them,) with smaller paths striking off from 

 them, extending sometimes to the distance of forty feet 

 from their nest, and leading to those spots in which they 

 collect their provisions ; that upon these roads they 

 always travel, and are very careful to remove from them 

 bits of sticks, straw, or any thing that may impede their 

 progress ; nay, that they even keep low the herbs and 

 grass which grow in them, by constantly biting them 

 off**, so that they may be said to mow their walks. But 

 the best constructors of roads are the hill-ants {F. rufu). 

 Of these De Geer says, " When you keep yourself 

 still, without making any noise in the woods peopled 

 with these ants, you may hear them very distinctly 

 walking over the dry leaves which are dispersed upon 

 the soil, the claws of their feet producing a slight sound 



" Plin. imt, Nat. Ixi. c. '29. " Gould; 87. 



VOL. H. 11 



