HEATHLANDS 103 



I took a step there, but stayed to watch two more 

 ants, who had got a long scarlet fly between them, one 

 holding it by the head and the other by the tail. They 

 were hurrying their prey over the dead leaves and decayed 

 sticks which strewed the ground, and dragging it merci- 

 lessly through moss and grass. I put the tip of my stick 

 on the victim, but instead of abandoning it they tugged 

 and pulled desperately, as if they would have torn it to 

 pieces rather than have yielded. So soon as I released 

 it away they went through the fragments of branches, 

 rushing the quicker for the delay. 



A little farther there was a spot where the ground for 

 a yard or two was covered with small dead brown leaves, 

 last year's, apparently of birch, for some young birch 

 saplings grew close by. One of these leaves suddenly 

 rose up and began to move of itself, as it seemed ; an 

 ant had seized it, and holding it by the edge travelled 

 on, so that as the insect was partly hidden under it, the 

 leaf appeared to move alone, now over sticks and now 

 under them. It reminded me of the sight which seemed 

 so wonderful to the early navigators when they came to 

 a country where, as they first thought, the leaves were 

 alive and walked about. 



The ant with the leaf went towards a large heap of 

 rubbish under the sapling birches. While watching the 

 innumerable multitude of these insects, whose road here 

 crossed these dead dry leaves, I became conscious of a 

 rustling sound, which at first I attributed to the wind, 

 but seeing that the fern was still, and that the green 

 leaves of a Spanish chestnut opposite did not move, I 

 began to realise that this creeping, rustling noise, dis- 

 tinctly audible, was not caused by any wind, but by the 

 thousands upon thousands of insects passing over the 

 dead leaves and among the grass. Stooping down to 



