144 NATURE STUDY. 



enough together to give the ant no end of trouble, as it 

 slowly made way with its reluctant prisoner. 



For about a foot the ant tugged along, sometimes push- 

 ing its load^head between the stalks of grass, but for the 

 most part proct- eding backwards, dragging the cricket after. 



Ever and anon, the cricket's head would pass on one side 

 of a stalk, while the ant had gone on the other, and, after 

 a full stop, it would be necessary to drag the cricket back 

 by main strength and try again. It was slow, laborious 

 work, even when things were at the best for the ant, and, 

 as the journey was likely to be long in point of time if not 

 in distance, we lay prone and watched and waited. 



F'rom a human view-point the ant sometimes displayed 

 bad judgment, or perhaps rather lack of what we call judg- 

 ment. At other times, as we shall see, there was some- 

 thing suggestive of memory and of the lessons of exper- 

 ience. It is probable that for ihe most part the ant simply 

 followed a trail, blindly retracing the steps by which it 

 had wandered from home. Recent experiments with a de- 

 vice called a "labyrinth" indicate that ants, in their 

 journeyings, leave some sort of trail — possibly a scent — by 

 means of which they are able to find their way back home. 

 When the ant, with great labor, jerking the cricket to 

 the right and to the left, sometimes tugging it backward 

 and then forward again, had made an advance of about a 

 foot, it came to a stalk of grass which was bent over, the 

 top resting on the ground. Up the straight stem went the 

 ant, dragging the cricket by main strength, to the height 

 of six inches, and then down the sloping portion to the 

 ground again. Fully five minutes were consumed in this 

 herculean labor, and the advance was not more than three 

 inches. But perhaps that was better than the chance of 

 losing one's way. 



Some pine boughs had been left by lumbermen, and one 

 lay across the ant's trail, which, apparently, was not so 



