ios : NATU-RE NEAR LONDON 



each end like beads, or the black top of long pins. 

 The length of their legs enabled them to move much 

 quicker, and they raced to and fro over the path 

 with great rapidity. The space covered by the stream 

 was a foot or more broad, all of which was crowded 

 and darkened by them, and as there was no cessation 

 in the flow of this multitude, their numbers must have 

 been immense. 



Standing a short way back, so as not to interfere with 

 their proceedings, I saw two of these insects seize hold 

 of a twig, one at each end. The twig, which was dead 

 and dry, and had dropped from a fir, was not quite so 

 long as a match, but rather thicker. They lifted this 

 stick with ease, and carried it along, exactly as labourers 

 cany a plank. A few short blades of grass being in the 

 way they ran up against them, but stepped aside, and 

 so got by. A cart which had passed a long while since 

 had forced down the sand by the weight of its load, 

 leaving a ridge about three inches high, the side being 

 perpendicular. 



Till they came to this cliff the two ants moved parallel, 

 but here one of them went first, and climbed up the 

 bank with its end of the stick, after which the second 

 followed and brought up the other. An inch or two 

 farther, on the level ground, the second ant left hold 

 and went away, and the first laboured on with the twig 

 and dragged it unaided across the rest of the path. 

 Though many other ants stayed and looked at the twig 

 a moment, none of them now offered assistance, as if 

 the chief obstacle had been surmounted. 



Several other ants passed, each -carrying the slender 

 needles which fall from firs, and which seemed nothing 

 in their powerful grasp. These burdens of wood all 

 went in one direction, to the right of the path. 



